


where we belong

by parentaladvisorybullshitcontent



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Snowed In, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent
Summary: "Only you," Martyn says."Only me what?""Only you could end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with a gay author who writes gay books. Jesus Christ, Phil."In which Phil is snowed in with nobody but the mysterious dark haired author next door for company.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 212
Kudos: 437





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So i wanted to write a quarantine style fic without the quarantine - and here it is!!
> 
> huge huge thanks to Andrea, the greatest beta of all, without whom this would just be a sneeze of letters 💖
> 
> title is from Armistice by Patrick Wolf

It starts when all the trains get cancelled.

  
Phil's on his way home, a long journey from the wedding of a close friend. He's tired, more than a little hungover. He wants his own flat - his rumpled bed, the door locked behind him, and a break from all human contact for the few weeks off work he has ahead of him. He'd saved up his days for so long just so he could look forward to endless hours of nothing ahead of him - nobody to expect anything from him, just time to himself.

  
The wedding had been nice - a nice start, in his itchy old suit, smiling and waving and throwing confetti. He'd drank too much wine at the reception with a few other old friends and now his head aches more and more with each announcement overhead, clipped electronic voice telling him that all trains are cancelled due to unforeseen weather complications.

  
He doesn't even know where he is, not really. This was just where he was meant to change, one of those quaint little platforms in the middle of nowhere, a place to wait to go to other places. It's cold - the wind blowing down from the platform edge feels like icy fingers on the back of his neck. There are clumps of disgruntled passengers here and there, and a queue at the ticket office.

  
He joins the queue. He waits. He texts Mark and John and Lacy, wondering if their hangovers are as bad as his. He likes some photos on Instagram. His hands start feeling numb so he shoves them in his pockets.

  
"There's a storm blowing in, I'm sorry," The woman at the ticket office tells him, when he finally gets to the front of the queue, most of the other passengers having dispersed.

  
"What about tomorrow?" Phil asks, feeling bad before he's even finished speaking.

  
"Sorry," She says, shaking her head. "Until the bad weather's blown over, I wouldn't get your hopes up." She must see the look of defeat on his face, because she adds, "You not from round here, sweetheart?"

  
Phil shakes his head. 

  
"I was just changing here when it all got cancelled," He says. "I guess I'll - I'll find somewhere to stay, it'll be fine."

  
"There aren't many places, not in the off season," She says, sympathetically. "Listen, love, why don't you try Colton Bay? It's just up the way, you can get a taxi. It's the only place taking people that I can think of. Little cottages and that. Margie runs it, rents the place out to film crews and what-have-you."

  
Phil doesn't dare to even ask what kind of price the mysterious Margie expects for a night in one of her cottages. He's too cold and tired - he just thanks the ticket lady and leaves.

  
-

  
Colton Bay, first of all, is nowhere near the sea. _He's_ nowhere near the sea, according to Google anyway - just land all around. It has some good ratings on tripadvisor ( _lovley place, will stay again, perfect for walking holidays!!!!_ ), some comments about it being reasonably priced. It's not like he really has a choice, anyway.

  
He calls the number on the website and waits. Beyond the foyer of the train station it's started to rain, lashing down in sheets and forming streams in the gutters. Umbrellas flap and bend in the wind - he watches two people running across the car park, shrieking, and wishes he'd brought a better coat.

  
A woman answers the phone, eventually. He explains his predicament - the trains and the storm - and says someone recommended Colton Bay as a good place to stay.

  
"It's the only place, darlin', in the off season," She says, warmly. "I got rooms. You come up here, I'll fix you up."

  
Thanking her, he hangs up.

  
-

  
The place he ends up in is like something out of a film or a fairytale. Just a little row of three cottages abandoned on a windswept hillside, grass rippling like water in the rain. Margie, who turns out to be a smiley older lady in a green jumper, takes him out there from the gatehouse in her car.

  
"This is as far as I can go," She says at the foot of the hill. "I'll help you take your bags up there."

  
"No, no, it's ok. I only have one bag," He says, mortified - he's pretty sure she's older than his mum.

  
"I need to show you where everything is, anyway," She says, firmly, and that's that.

  
The building is small and the ceilings are low. She shows him the bathroom, in a little room off the kitchen, tells him he can light the log fire whenever he wants, and shows him where the spare blankets are, in a dark little cupboard at the top of the exceptionally creaky stairs.

  
When she's gone, he's hit by the silence. There's nothing but the patter of rain and the rush of wind beyond the windows. It occurs to him, standing there in the hallway, hand resting against a cold whitewashed wall, that this cottage is almost certainly old enough to be haunted. Even the light switches are weirdly old fashioned looking, bulbs hanging from the ceiling by deeply unsafe looking wires.

  
He drags his rucksack up the stairs, leaving all the lights on as he goes. The bedroom is small, like everything else - rickety little double bed pushed up against the wall, piled high with blankets that look handmade. There's a fluffy looking rug covering the floorboards up here, and the walls are covered in paintings of flowers. Phil sits and looks at one particular painting of a field of sunflowers, dimly aware of the storm raging outside, and calls Martyn.

  
"You what?" is what he keeps saying. "You're - what?"  
"I know," Phil says. He's lying down, head cushioned on soft pillows, watching the rain hit the little window across the room. "I literally don't know where I am and - and I think there's no wifi."

  
Martyn whistles.

  
"Well, you're gonna die, then."

  
"Fuck off."

  
"You fuck off," Martyn says, mildly. "Have you told mum?"

  
"No? Not yet, anyway. Why, what's she gonna do, come and get me in her TARDIS?"

  
"I dunno. She might know what to do."

  
Phil shrugs to himself, then remembers Martyn can't actually see him.

  
"I'll just wait it out and then get another train home, that's all. It's not so bad."

  
"What, with no wifi?"

  
"I've got data," Phil says, stubbornly. "And - and it's cute. It's really cute, actually. Like, old fashioned and nice. There's a log fire and everything."

  
"Ok," Martyn says. "Have fun setting yourself alight."

  
"Oh my God, you're so funny, goodbye."

  
Martyn just does this stupid panting laugh down the phone, because it's the job of all older brothers everywhere to be as annoying as shit.

  
"Don't actually set yourself on fire, alright?" He says, after a moment. "That was a joke."

  
"I won't," Phil says. "Love you."

  
"Love you," Martyn says, and hangs up. 

  
Then he's really alone, nothing but him and an empty, unfamiliar house, and the darkening sky beyond the little window.

  
-

  
He ends up going to bed really early, his imagination playing tricks on him the whole time. The curtains rustle on the rail as he draws them and he pauses with his hand on the fabric, heart thudding hard in his chest and scalp prickling, wondering what he'd do if he turned around now and there was someone there behind him, creeping out of their hiding place in the rickety old cupboard where he'd hung up his only clean t-shirt earlier.

  
He shakes his head at himself, knowing he's being stupid. That hadn't stopped him running up the stairs after he'd turned the light off at the bottom, plunging the hallway into inky darkness.

  
Once he's in bed, frilly bedside lamp switched on, he feels better. He listens to a podcast in the half light, lets a soothing voice and the relentless patter of the rain, so much more satisfying when he's warm in bed, lull him to sleep.

  
-

  
In the morning, his fears from the night before just feel like a bad dream, shadows dissipating in the weak morning light. The wind is still howling outside, making the windows rattle - he checks the local train times, but there's still nothing leaving to London - nothing leaving at all, in fact.

  
 _still alive?_ Martyn sent, a few hours ago. He replies with a coffin emoji.

  
Now that the morning has come and he slept wonderfully in the squashy, creaky old bed, he feels much more optimistic about this whole situation. It feels like an adventure - like a retreat, an opportunity to just relax and be by himself. Admittedly the lack of wifi isn't the best, but it's not the end of the world.

  
Or at least, that's what he tells himself a little while later, splashing water on his face in the bathroom by the kitchen. He wore tracksuit pants and an old shirt to bed and he can't see any reason to change into anything else. Apart from the fact that he didn't exactly bring a wealth of clothing choices with him, it's not like he intends to go anywhere.

  
The kitchen, he thinks, when he's leaving the bathroom, big old door creaking as he goes, is lovely. It has a little old stove and beautiful patterned plates that seem too nice to eat off. He touches a bowl reverently. It doesn't feel right, somehow, eating cereal out of one. He hunts around for cereal all the same, peering into the cupboards. There's nothing though, just some cleaning spray and dish sponges.  
It's only when he happens to open a door next to the last cupboard that he realises he's hit the jackpot - it leads to a little storeroom with shelves, full of tins and jars of teabags and coffee and cereal.

  
Phil's just nosing at the tins further into the room, wondering about dinner already, when the door opens behind him. His heart lurches and he just about jumps out of his skin, all of his anxieties from the previous night made flesh. But it's just some guy, bleary-eyed in boxers, scratching his stomach unselfconsciously in the split second before he spots Phil. Eyes wide, he backs out of the cupboard as quickly as he'd entered, the door closing with a snap behind him.

  
Phil takes a second to just stand there, his heart hammering. Then he takes the jar of Frosties and the coffee and retreats back into the kitchen in his cottage, pulling the cupboard door shut behind him.

  
He takes his cereal and coffee and sits in the little armchair under the window. Outside, the wind ripples through the grass, the steely grey sky promising rain. Phil taps around on a game, using some data to scroll through Instagram, sipping his coffee and enjoying the quiet.

  
He's rinsing his cereal bowl a little while later, second cup of coffee steaming on the side, when there's a quiet knock on the cupboard door.

  
"Hello?" He says, uncertainly.

  
The door opens. It's the boxers guy, now fully dressed all in black, cheeks pink.

  
"Hi," He says. "I, um. Sorry. About - about that. I didn't know there was anyone else staying here. There isn't usually, I mean, I..." He stops. "I'm Dan."

  
Dan, as if Phil hadn't noticed when he'd walked in mostly naked, is cute. Of course he is. Of course Phil gets stranded in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with a cute guy next door.

  
He's probably straight, knowing Phil's luck. Straight and married with kids.

  
"I'm, uh, Phil." He dries his hands on a tea towel, the pair of them just standing there, awkwardly. "Do you, er? I have the coffee. I mean. I can make you a coffee."

  
Dan blinks.

  
"I'm. No, it's ok, I'm. I should..." He gestures in the direction of his own cottage. "I, uh. I write. I mean, I come here to write."

  
"Oh," Phil says, eloquently.

  
Dan just smiles, awkward and flat.

  
"Nice to meet you, Phil. Sorry again."

  
He disappears back into the cupboard, closing the door gently behind him.

  
-

  
That first day, Phil doesn't do much. The wind moans and groans up in the eaves of the old building, weather beyond the windows getting progressively worse and worse. He manages to put the heating on somehow, shuddering a little, but it's still chilly. He thinks maybe the old walls are so thick that they just keep hold of the cold, like he's sitting in a walk-in freezer. He puts his hoodie on and two pairs of socks, and wraps a patchwork blanket around himself like a toga.

  
It's nice to be alone, despite the chill. It's nice to have nowhere to be, no work to do. It's nice to be able to play music out loud on his phone and absently sing to himself as he tries to figure out how to use the washing machine he found in another walk in cupboard. He starts a wash of all the stuff he's already worn, underwear and socks and his crumpled blue shirt from the wedding, and sits under four more blankets on the sofa, reading.

  
There's a bookshelf in the corner of the room, full of the oddest selection of books - old a to z road maps stuffed in amongst glossy romances, books about the history of fishing in England crammed next to dusty old crime thrillers. He did look at the crime thrillers, wondering, but then remembered his minor panic of the previous evening and decided against it. Possibly not the best reading material when he's all alone in a creaky old cottage.

  
Well. All alone except for boxers guy. Dan, he'd said. _I come here to write_ \- Phil can see why. No wifi and nobody except Margie for miles and miles around. He wonders _what_ he writes. Probably big hefty books, the kind where it's all horribly serious and all the characters are sad and there's at least one awkward description of boobs that goes on for way too long.

  
Phil laughs to himself at that, mind wandering. His fingers itch to check his phone, to be doing something other than this, but he valiantly ignores the urge. He'd chosen one of the romances, for all the good it's doing him - unsurprisingly, it's one of the most depressingly heterosexual things he's ever read.

  
Despite himself, he gets into it. Maybe it's the lack of internet or options, but he ends up sitting there for a long time. There's something undeniably nice about it, about occasionally glancing up at the little front window, eyes catching on the bruised-looking sky. It makes him appreciate everything more, the blanket nest he's made for himself and how warm his feet are in his socks, the soft squashiness of the sofa.

  
He sits and reads until the daylight changes, sunshine pressing against the clouds enough to give Phil a flare of white light in the room for a moment before it's gone again. 

  
It's like he never realised before how noisy his life is, always. Noisy and busy, always with someone to see or somewhere to be or something do. He likes it that way, for the most part - likes to be occupied. It makes him feel accomplished, like he isn't just wasting time, seconds falling away like grains of sand in an hourglass.

  
And yet there's something refreshing in not being able to go anywhere - in having no choice, really. It's like he didn't realise how guilty he always felt for idle days spent sitting around until he had no choice but to sit around, and the guilt is gone. It's nice - the lifting of a weight he hadn't even known was there.

  
-

  
"I contacted National Rail," Martyn says.

  
Phil's phone is resting on the side while he cooks, the speakerphone making him feel less strange and alone - like Martyn could just be on the other side of the room, same as when they were kids.

  
"What? Why?"

  
"Because," Martyn says. Phil gives the water he's poaching eggs in a nervous prod. "I called mum and told her what was going on with you-"

  
"Martyn!"

  
"And she said that it was ridiculous that there were no trains, they couldn't just leave you stranded, blah blah blah, and she was on about her and dad driving up to get you, somehow, which would be, like-"

  
"The biggest mess in the whole world, oh my _God_."

  
"Well, yeah. So I was like, _don't worry, I'll check National Rail_."

  
"And...?"

  
"Oh, you're screwed, basically," Martyn says, cheerfully. "There's, like, red weather warnings and stuff. No trains, too risky. So you're stuck in your weird little haunted house for now."

  
"It's not haunted," Phil says, like he's completely convinced of the fact. "There's some guy staying next door actually, he..." And he stops, eyeing the cupboard door, fearfully. The wood seems thick and old, and there are two doors separating them, but who knows how much his voice carries?

  
" _Oh_ ," Martyn says, voice horribly knowing.

  
"Fuck off."

  
"Does he have, like, a rippling six pack?"

  
" _Rippling_? D'you realise how you sound?" Phil says, but he's laughing despite himself. "Yeah, yeah, I walked in on him bench pressing anvils. Ship's anchors, that sort of thing." He pauses. "You know just 'cause I'm gay doesn't mean every guy is-"

  
"I know," Martyn says. "I just know what you sound like when you fancy someone, God help me."

  
"I honestly hate you," Phil says, vehemently, hoping against hope that Dan can't hear him from his cottage.

  
"Is he cute?” Martyn persists, because he's an arsehole. "Speak now or forever hold your peace, and all that."

  
"I'm hanging up now." Phil says, in a sing-song voice, taking the pan off the heat and turning the stove off. "Bye."

  
"You could have a _romance_ ," Martyn says, in this stupid breathy voice.

  
In the background, he hears Cornelia ask, "Oh, has he met someone?"

  
"Yeah, there's some guy in the cottage next door," Martyn says. Phil scrambles to pick up his phone and turn the speaker off, holding it to his ear, face hot. "Chiseled adonis."

  
"Martyn!"

  
"Oh my God, what if he's a ghost?" Martyn asks. "You could have a romance with a _ghost_ -"

  
He hears Cornelia laughing in the background and telling Martyn to leave him alone.

  
"I'm hanging up and I hate you."

  
"Don't die, love you," Martyn says all in one breath before he manages to hang up once and for all.

  
-

  
Phil eats at the table this time, music playing from his phone to distract himself from the odd creaks and groans of the cottage. It's soothing, all of this silence and freedom. Something he could get used to.

  
-

  
By the second day, he feels like he's fallen into a routine of sorts. He wakes up, warm under the weight of eight or nine blankets, shoves his glasses on and lies there for a moment in bed, looking over at the light beyond the curtains, listening with relish to the wind and the rain, always somehow more satisfying when you're warm and dry. He uses some of his mobile data to check the train situation, then when there's inevitably nothing (and the red weather warning Martyn had warned him about) he crawls out of bed and goes downstairs in search of coffee and cereal.

  
Milk in the fridge is running low, on the second day. He has the smallest bowl of cereal in the world, puts a little splash in his coffee, then weighs up his options.

  
He could knock on the cupboard door and ask if Dan has any milk. But that feels weird, somehow. He said he came here to write - the last thing Phil wants to do is put him off. And maybe he's vegan or something, or lactose intolerant, and the concept of being asked for milk fills him with horror. Phil's lactose intolerant, sure, but most days he just accepts that he's gonna feel like shit for the sake of chocolate and ice cream and pizza. Maybe Dan isn't like that.

  
Maybe he drinks black coffee, Phil thinks, when he's drinking his own coffee, rather stronger than he'd like with the lack of milk, squinting out at the hillside beyond the cottage windows. Maybe he doesn't drink coffee at all.

  
He thinks about it for so long, mulling over every possible outcome, that he realises he's just never gonna do it. Which leaves the rather less appealing but also less embarrassing option of walking down to the gatehouse to buy milk off Margie. She'd mentioned that she sold essentials down there for guests, because the nearest shops are too far ("It'll be just bread you'll run out of," She'd told him, confidently. "The cupboards up there are stocked enough to last you for months.")

  
The weather is still utterly dismal outside. Everything is grey and murky, mist rolling in from the higher ground and making everything foggy and strange. He really probably shouldn't risk going out there, but it's not like he has much of a choice. Besides, Margie said people came here for walking holidays, usually - if it was perilous, he doubts it'd be so popular. 

  
He finds walking boots in the back of the bedroom cupboard, and a yellow raincoat. Both fit, somehow, although the coat was clearly intended for someone of average height and he keeps having to pull the cuffs down so they cover his wrists. He debates for a second at the door over taking his airpods with him - music would be good, but them somehow flying out of his ears and into a ravine, or something, would be less good.

  
So he ventures out alone, without even his phone. That's a decision he regrets about two seconds in - what if he falls into a ravine? How will he get help? 

  
He pauses on the path, boots crunching a little on gravel. The rain's beating down hard on his hood with a patter he associates with being in a tent. His hands are already cold, spots of rain already clinging to his glasses. He looks back at the cottages for a second, at the lights in the windows in the grey morning, and wonders what Dan's doing right now in the other cottage.

  
Probably writing indoors, like a regular person with no desire to drown on a hillside.

  
There's something satisfying in walking, though. The wind rages and roars around him, blowing his hood off his head. He tries to pull it back on at first but quickly gives up. His hair gets plastered to his head by icy rain, but there's something freeing about it all - about trudging through the landscape in a stranger's boots, grass rippling like water. Distant trees bend and creak like they're calling for help as he passes, hopping over uneven rocks and walking carefully down slight inclines - the last thing he needs is to sprain his ankle.

  
The gatehouse emerges out of the gloom quicker than he'd expected it to. It's a lovely building - old fashioned and decorative, a completely different style to the boxy little cottages. This is more like where the rich people would live in a period drama, he thinks - the cottages are where the poor farmers would live.

  
Margie's gate is off the latch, banging rhythmically against the gatepost as the wind pulls and pushes it over and over. Phil fights his way through it, glad to be on smooth ground again, and takes shelter on the porch to knock on the door.

  
"Oh, goodness," Margie says when she answers the door. "Come in, come in, is everything alright?"

  
"I just - you said something about selling milk," Phil manages as she ushers him in until he's dripping on the mat, shuddering a little in the sudden warmth.

  
"Goodness, yes," Margie says. "I was just heading out myself - there's been a power cut in the village and the stuff in the freezer at the hall's defrosting, and I said I'd be able to take as much of it as I can to freeze here...oh but it's really not safe for you to be out in this, dear..."

  
Phil just shivers while she bustles around, hurrying him into the kitchen despite his muddy boots ("I've had worse, dear”), and getting milk out of the fridge which she then refuses to accept his money for.  
"I'm so sorry, normally I'd offer you tea, but..."

  
"It's ok," Phil says, quickly. "The - the stuff's defrosting, it's ok."

  
"I'll drive you back up," Margie says, adding butter and a loaf of bread to the bag with the milk in and ignoring his protests. "Oh, and if you wouldn't mind - there's another young man staying in the cottage next door to yours, he got some post that I've been meaning to take up to him, if that's...?"

  
"Yeah, that's ok, I'll - I'll give it to him," Phil says.  
Which is how he ends up nervously standing on the doorstep of Dan's cottage, wet with rain, knocking on the door.

  
"Sorry," Phil says, when Dan opens the door, wearing a huge black jumper and looking about a thousand times warmer than Phil feels right now. "I went to buy milk and - and you had post, and -" He sneezes, out of nowhere, as if he couldn't behave like more of an idiot.

  
Dan blinks at him for a second.

  
“That’s really yellow,” He says.

  
“ _Little Nightmares_ realness,” Phil blurts out before he can stop himself.

  
Dan laughs then, like the sound was surprised out of him.

  
“I mean, yeah,” He says. “God, come in, it’s horrible out there.”

  
"But - I'll get mud everywhere," Phil says. He hadn't been prepared for this. He'd expected to give Dan the post then retreat to his own cottage.

  
"It's ok. Just leave your boots in the hall," Dan says. "You can go back through the cupboard, come on."

  
Dan wanders further into the cottage while Phil struggles with the wet bootlaces, leaving the boots themselves lined up neatly by the door, raincoat hung up on a hook in the hallway. When he makes his way into the living room, feeling weirdly vulnerable with his bag of milk and bread and Dan's post, it's to find Dan making coffee in the kitchen, spooning instant into mugs just as the kettle clicks off.

  
"You said you liked coffee, right? I - sorry. Sorry, I'm. I don't talk to people much when I'm here, and - and I guess I forget how, or something."

  
"That's ok," Phil says. "I, um. Yeah, coffee's good." He pauses. "I have a lot of milk, if you need it."

  
"No worries," Dan says. "I've got a cupboard full. Long life. I, er. I stock up, I guess. So if you run out again just let me know." He hands Phil one of the coffees, then picks up his own, the pair of them just looking at each other. "Sorry, um. You said post?"

  
"Oh," Phil says. He sets his coffee down on the kitchen side and pulls the envelopes out of the bag, handing them over. Dan sets his own coffee down to take them and flip through them, pulling a face. "Not good? Bills?"

  
Dan smiles then, a dimpled smile. 

  
"No, just - publisher stuff. Nothing interesting. I, um. That's part of why I stay here, really - they have to write to me 'cause there's no internet and I can, like, procrastinate on replying 'cause the only postbox is in the village and I don't have a car, so."

  
"I bet Margie would post stuff for you."

  
"Oh, she would," Dan says. "But they don't know that." He picks up his coffee again and takes a sip. "Do you wanna, uh...? I can get you a towel for your hair."

  
"It's ok," Phil says, even though water is dripping uncomfortably down his neck. "What d'you write, if you don't mind me asking?"

  
"Oh," Dan says, flushing a little. "Uh. Romance, I guess."

  
"Oh."

  
"Yeah. Big shocker, right?" Only he's being sarcastic.   
"I mean, a little bit," Phil says. "I thought, like - like, big serious books, I guess. Crime thrillers, or something."

  
"God, no," Dan says, and laughs at the idea. There's something beautiful about his laugh - about the way his eyes sparkle. Phil wishes he hadn't noticed. "Just. Just gay romances here, that's it."

  
Phil's heart jumps in his chest like an excited puppy.

  
"Oh."

  
"Oh?" Dan says. There's something defensive about him in that second that Phil can't quite put his finger on, a cat with its fur on end. "I mean, without gay romances there'd just be straight ones, and that'd be-"

  
"Terrible, really really terrible," Phil interrupts. "I mean, I'm gay, so."

  
Dan looks at him. Phil's never really thought twice about brown eyes before - never really bothered about eye colour full stop, but Dan's eyes are truly lovely.

  
"Same," He says, with another little smile, the defensiveness gone as quickly as it'd arrived.

  
Phil smiles, then laughs a little, the pair of them huffing out little conspiratorial giggles.

  
"Thank God," He says, then flushes. "I mean - I dunno, I -"

  
"I'm not gonna try and talk to you about _The Big Bang Theory_ or Ed Sheeran," Dan finishes, helpfully.

  
"Yeah!" Phil says. "So - what happens in these gay romances?"

  
-

  
"Only you," Martyn says, later. Phil's in bed, covers pulled up high and lamp on, with one of Dan's books resting on the bedside table.

  
"Only me what?"

  
"Only you could end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with a gay author who writes gay books. Jesus Christ, Phil."

  
"It's not like that."

  
"Oh, so he's not gay? And he doesn't write gay books?"

  
"Martyn," Phil says. "You're making it sound like - like more than it is."

  
"I'm really not. I'm just repeating the facts exactly as you said them to me."

  
"Yeah, well," Phil says. Then, his voice small, he adds, "He's nice."

  
"Oh," Martyn says. "Are you guys gonna make gay pamphlets together?"

  
"I - what?"

  
"Leave him alone," Cornelia says in the background.

  
"I'm being supportive!"

  
"You're being a brother," Cornelia corrects him.

  
"She's right, y'know," Phil says. He yawns, out of nowhere, eyes watering. "I'm gonna go. Really tired."

  
"It's only nine," Martyn says. "This cottage life has changed you. Sleep well, loser."

  
"Yeah, yeah," Phil says, and hangs up.

  
Instead of plugging his phone in and rolling over to go to sleep, he picks Dan's book up to look at.

  
"I'm not - I don't just have them with me to - to show off," Dan had said when he'd handed it over, face red. "I just - sometimes it helps to - to be able to look at the stuff I've already done. It's, like, encouraging, somehow."

  
It's an untouched copy, smooth and fresh-smelling when he presses his nose to the side, like bookshops on sunny afternoons. He should just start it, just open it and read it, the same as he did with that awful straight book downstairs.

  
Except. Except he feels like he's teetering on the edge of something - a fall there'd be no climbing back up from, something to do with Dan's eyes and the dimples when he smiles. Which is ridiculous, ludicrous, considering he knows next to nothing about him except that he writes gay books and is also gay.

  
And he's cute. That too.

  
If Phil reads the book and it's amazing - heart-stoppingly amazing - then he doesn't know what he'll do, or say, or think. It's best to just _not_ , he thinks. For now, at least.

  
That doesn't stop him thinking about it when he switches the light off. Thinking about Dan in his cottage so close by, maybe lying in bed the same as Phil - or else hunched over his laptop, writing...

  
"Shut up," Phil mumbles to himself, pressing his face into the pillows.

  
-

  
The next afternoon, there's a knock on the cupboard door. 

  
Phil's snuggled up on the sofa when it happens. He jumps a little and ends up spilling lukewarm coffee on himself. Swearing, he abandons his cup on the coffee table and absently calls "Come in", while he tries to dab the coffee off the clean blankets.

  
"Oh," Dan says. Phil moves, but he's mummified in blankets and he nearly ends up rolling onto the floor. Praying Dan didn't notice, he manages to twist enough so he can see him, lurking in the shadows by the cupboard door like a nervous spectre. "Hi, I - sorry."

  
"It's ok," Phil says, even though he doesn't know what Dan's apologizing for. "Is everything ok? Was - was my music too loud before?"

  
"No, no," Dan says. "I - ok, now I'm here this seems like an awful idea. And - and if you think it is, that's ok."

  
"What is it?"

  
Dan sighs, and Phil feels a little bit cold with dread for a second. Everything about the way Dan's behaving suggests he's about to say something terrible - something like _I lied about being gay yesterday because I felt awkward and my wife told me I should let you know I'm straight to avoid any future misunderstandings._

  
Except what he actually says is, "D'you want lasagna?"

  
"Sorry?"

  
Dan twists his fingers together like he just offered to force-feed Phil arsenic.

  
"I made lasagna. I, uh. Like I said yesterday, I always bring food, like, a lot of food, and - and I made too much for just me. I used the wrong dish, er. Anyway, you can have some, if you want. It's not ready yet and - and you might hate it, but."

  
"Sure," Phil says. 

  
Part of him (a part that sounds an awful lot like Martyn) is wondering if this is some elaborate murder plot wherein he eats poisoned lasagna and is never seen or heard from again. But a larger part of him - the part that missed lunch, and wasn't looking forward to beans on toast for dinner, thinks that maybe death by lasagna isn't the worst way a guy could go.

  
"I mean, it's," Dan starts saying, evidently having expected Phil to say no. Then he stops. "Oh, I-"

  
"I mean, if it's spare," Phil says, Dan's lurking nervousness rubbing off on him a little. "I don't wanna, like, make you go hungry, or anything."

  
"No, no," Dan says, quickly. "You wouldn't, I - I got way too into it, I -" He pulls a pained face. "I mean, I was so focused on, like, not writing, that I...yeah. There's a lot." He pauses. "Normally I'd take it over to Margie but-"

  
"Yeah," Phil says, dimly aware of the way the wind is still raging outside. "Yeah, no, don't do that. You'll get blown away."

  
"Yeah," Dan says. "I'll just, um. Sorry for interrupting."

  
And he's gone again, cupboard door closed behind him with a soft noise, like he was never there. Phil blinks for a moment at the space where he'd been and wonders if this whole thing is just an elaborate hallucination - if Dan is actually the ghost of some writer who'd worked here years and years ago, only to die mysteriously, his spirit forever trapped in the cottage where he'd never finished his last novel...

  
Except when Phil disentangles himself from his blankets in search of more coffee, he can smell cooking, the scent drifting in under the cupboard door, garlic and basil and melting cheese. If ghosts did exist, he thinks, the likelihood of them actually being able to cook a lasagna would be slim to none, surely.

  
 _in being human annie made all that tea_ , Martyn replies, when Phil poses this conundrum to him. _whats up did a ghost show up and offer to make u dinner_

  
 _no_ , Phil replies, vague. 

  
_don't eat ghost food for the love of god_ , Martyn says. _i'll call mum immediately_

  
Phil just sends him a ghost emoji. His brain is whirring with too many thoughts all at once - probably something to do with the lack of other things to do and the surplus of caffeine he's consumed. Is this just something Dan does? Just shows up when people stay in these remote cottages and offers them food? Is it weird that he just let himself in through the cupboard instead of, like, going outside and knocking on the door?

  
Is it because they're both gay? If Phil had said he was straight, would Dan have come through and offered to make him dinner like that?

  
His heart flutters with nervousness the longer time goes on and he doesn't hear anything from next door. He tries to focus on anything else, but his eyes slide over Instagram posts without getting even an ounce of meaning from them.

  
Is he stupid to accept a dinner invitation from a complete stranger in the middle of nowhere? He guesses people do it all the time in cities or whatever - not that random people have ever really tried to approach Phil in that kind of way. But it does happen. People go for dinner with strangers and they - they...

  
Except, he thinks. It's not like that. Dan's probably stir crazy from writing by himself for months on end - just wanting some company, that's all. That's _all_. 

  
Phil sometimes wishes he could just jettison all longing from his body, all gay yearning, all the soft sighs that slip out of him when he sees queer couples in public and wishes beyond all hope that that could be him, happy and secure and holding hands down the street. It's such a stupid, rose-tinted way of looking at the world, but that won't really ever stop him. In a heartbeat and a cute smile he can forget every sharp word spoken in a previous relationship, every argument turned particularly sour, every disagreement that he initially forgave but stuck in his ribs like arrows.

  
He can forget that love isn't perfect and just kind of _long_ for it, in this sad, non-specific way, wondering when his stupid romance novel is gonna start happening, when some hot guy is gonna show up and try and sweep him off his feet.

  
So of course, he starts wondering about Dan. Wondering if when he'd walked into the cupboard on that first day he'd been so blinded, so breathtaken by Phil's handsomeness that he simply had to offer him lasagna. Or something. 

  
Phil groans at himself, shaking his head hard, like he can get the thoughts out from between his ears somehow. Then he grabs some clean dry clothes from the radiator and locks himself in the downstairs bathroom to shower.

  
It's not the best shower for a person of Phil's height. He gets the feeling that using the bath would've been better, but it's pretty deep and old fashioned and somehow intimidating. So he ends up stooped awkwardly under the spray for ten minutes, using the sweet-smelling bottles of shower gel and shampoo that are all lined up on little shelves. 

  
Afterwards, when his teeth are chattering a little as he dries himself and falls into clean tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, he looks up at the high strip of window this room has and realises that it's snowing. It's really, actually snowing.

  
He's just leaving the bathroom, planning on calling Martyn and telling him that he's about to get snowed in, when he stops, socked feet sliding on the floorboards.

  
There's a plate of lasagna on the kitchen table, steaming, smelling just as delicious as it did from under the door.

  
Phil blinks at it for a second. He wonders if this is how Hansel and Gretel felt. Mostly, though, he feels enormously, collossally stupid. He'd really let himself entertain the thought that Dan might wanna have dinner with him, instead of it all being some weird cottage Uber Eats thing.

  
Face hot, he gets a fork from the cutlery drawer and takes the plate over to the sofa and eats. 

  
It's really good, actually. It's been ages since Phil had lasagna. If it's poisoned lasagna, then the taste is hidden well enough that he doesn't think he even minds.

  
He eats and watches the rapidly darkening sky outside, the flurries of white dancing beyond the glass.

  
-

  
His phone is ringing.

  
"Mmf," He says, when he finally manages to get hold of it, stabbing everywhere on the screen until he answers the call. He's curled up in a warm ball under a pile of blankets in bed, most of his brain still focused on whatever dream he'd been having, eyes heavy and mostly closed. "Hello?"

  
"Oh, thank goodness," Margie's voice is high and frantic. "Now listen, alright, I don't want you to panic. I know things like this don't really happen in the city but it shouldn't last longer than a few days and there's enough food over there to last you - have you found the freezer yet?"

  
She keeps talking and Phil is too tired and uncaffeinated to process any of the words.

  
"...shouldn't take more than a few days to stop," She's saying. "And anyway, it's something exciting, isn't it? A story to tell? Not often you get snowed in-"

  
"Sorry," Phil says, finally waking up enough to actually register what she's saying. " _What_?"

  
It's only when he drags himself out from under the blankets, teeth chattering with the cold, and staggers over to the window that he really understands what's going on.

  
There's nothing but white out there. Flurries of snow careening down from the steely sky, and nothing but a blanket of snow as far as the eye can see. When he presses his forehead to the glass so he can look down properly he can see how high up it comes - to at least the middle of the front door, right under the living room windows, like the ground rose up around them overnight.

  
"Shit," Phil says, softly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, thank you all so much for being so lovely about the last chapter. Can't explain how much it means to me 💖💖💖💖 just the biggest thank you in the world
> 
> as ever this fic is made possible by Andrea (midnightradio on tumblr 👀👀 quality blog) Andrea, you're wonderful 🥰🥰🥰

When Phil goes downstairs and opens the cupboard door, ready to knock on Dan's side, it's to find Dan already in there, hand raised.

  
"Jesus Christ," They say in unison.

  
"I - Margie called," Phil says. "We're snowed in."

  
"She called me too," Dan says. His hair's sticking up a little, presumably from sleep. It looks great - Phil dreads to think what _he_ looks like. "D'you want a coffee?"

  
There's something in Phil, a little voice that wants him to say, _yeah, just leave it on the table in here_ , but he's never really been that sort of guy outside of his own head.

  
"Please," He says, instead.

  
-

  
There's a little stack of books on the coffee table in Dan's cottage - all his.

  
"No, no, don't," He says, from over by the kettle, when Phil picks one up for a closer look. "It's bad enough you already have one. Shouldn't have given it to you."

  
"I haven't started it yet," Phil admits, awkwardly.

  
"Good," Dan says, darkly, stirring sugar into their cups. "It's so embarrassing."

  
"Can't be that embarrassed if it's published."

  
Dan snorts, bringing the coffee over. Their fingers brush as he passes Phil his cup, and Phil wishes he hadn't noticed - especially after the stupid lasagna thing.

  
"Ever heard of Fifty Shades of Grey?" Dan says.

  
"Not the same thing," Phil says. "Not _straight_ , for a start. Instant improvement."

  
"Whatever you say."

  
They're quiet for a moment. Phil's eyes dart around the room - at the notebooks littered on the other side of the sofa, Dan's laptop idling on its screensaver, plugged into the wall. Dan himself, cross legged in the armchair, sipping his hot coffee, the pair of them drinking in a civilised way while it's literally the new ice age outside, or something.

  
"Thanks for the lasagna, by the way," He says, because he can't help himself. "It was really good."

  
"Oh, thanks," Dan says, a little pink in the face. "Listen, I - I shouldn't have just left it like that, I'm sorry."

  
"What?" Phil says, in an Oscar-worthy imitation of confusion and cluelessness. "Don't be daft. It was delicious."

  
'Yeah, but." Dan exhales through his nose, frowning. "I, like. I offered it to you 'cause - 'cause I thought we could eat together, and - I mean, I eat alone all the time. Like, literally, _constantly_ , I'm always by myself and I. I thought a change might be nice. And - and you don't seem like an axe murderer, so-"

  
"I left my axe at home," Phil interjects. "Wouldn't fit in my bag." He exhales a laugh at the look on Dan's face. "Sorry, couldn't resist, carry on."

  
Dan shakes his head, small smile on his face.

  
"I dunno, I. I chickened out, basically. Of actual human company."

  
Something inside Phil softens, like a thaw in the springtime.

  
"That's ok," He says. "That's - everyone has days like that. It's fine."

  
Dan seems relaxed, but the tapping of his fingers against his coffee cup tells a different story.

  
"I just didn't want you to think it was, like, you."

  
"I didn't," Phil says, quickly. There's something about Dan's expression that makes him continue. "I mean, I _did_ , but. That's just what anxiety's like, y'know? It's not like I thought, _oh he's a bad person for not wanting to have dinner with a random stranger_. I just thought I'd misinterpreted what you meant, that's all."

  
"You didn't," Dan says. "I just. I dunno. King of Overthinking, that's me."

  
"I'll fight you for that title," Phil says. "That day with the milk, I was gonna knock and ask if you had some but I thought, like, what if he's a vegan and the mere mention of milk offends him? That's why I ended up going to buy some."

  
Dan grins.

  
"So we're both in the same boat," He says.

  
"Looks like it, yeah."

  
-

  
"Has this ever happened before?" Phil asks, a few cups of coffee later. The pair of them have migrated to the window seat at the front of the cottage to better watch the deluge. "Like, when you've been here?"

  
Dan shrugs. 

  
"It's snowed before," He says. "But not like this."

  
"God," Phil says. He moves closer to the window, forehead touching the icy glass 'til it feels like brain freeze. There's nothing but white beyond the window, every distinguishing feature about the pathway at the front of the cottages and the surrounding trees half-swallowed by snow, bare arms of trees reaching up into the sky like drowning hands. "What - what do we even do? I don't even have any _jumpers_."

  
He realises how that sounds - how funny it is to sound so folorn, so desperate about a lack of knitwear. When he pulls back from the window, making eye contact with Dan, he can see that he's thinking the exact same thing. They end up laughing, Phil grinning so wide his face hurts when they stop.

  
" _I don't even have any jumpers,_ " Dan repeats, in a terrible Northern accent.

  
"Shut up," Phil says, flushing, but he's grinning. "I don't. I'm gonna freeze to death."

  
"No you won't," Dan says. "I have jumpers. And I know how to light a fire." When Phil opens his mouth to protest, Dan keeps going. "We have to pool our resources. What've you got, like, one pair of trousers and a pack of cereal?"

  
"I was going to a wedding," Phil explains. "That was my only plan, like, go to the wedding, go home. That's it. And then the trains all got cancelled and then-"

  
"Then you wound up snowed in with some weirdo who brought eight jumpers with him," Dan finishes. "I'll get you one and. And." He stops. "I guess if we - if we wanna make sure we don't run out of firewood you should, uh, hang out in here?"

  
"Right, yeah," Phil says, heart fluttering a little. "Two fires is - it's wasteful. Think of the ozone, y'know?"

  
"Exactly," Dan says, then disappears through the hall doorway. Phil listens to the soft sound of his socked feet running up the stairs, and tries to breathe deeply and not let his imagination run away with him.

  
He nips back through the cupboard doors, leaving them all open in his wake, to grab blankets and his phone and Dan's book and bring them all back in, dumping everything in a heap on the sofa. He can only assume the armchair is Dan's first choice of a place to write, since it's where his laptop is.

  
He ends up back at the window seat, watching the snow, when Dan makes his creaky way back down the stairs, a couple of jumpers thrown over his arm.

  
"Two choices," He says, joining Phil on the window seat, their knees touching. "Black or black."

  
Phil pretends to look thoughtful for a second.

  
"I think it's gonna have to be black," He says. "After much deliberation."

  
Dan grins and hands him one of the jumpers, throwing the other one in the vague direction of the sofa.

  
Phil just holds the soft wool in his hands, surreptitiously breathing in the smell of unfamiliar laundry detergent. He should put it on - being this close to the window is sending a chill right into his bones, but he just ends up sitting, watching the snow and not watching Dan.

  
"God," He says, quietly, after a moment. "What do we do?"

  
"Not much," Dan says. When Phil turns to look at him there's something distant in his eyes, in the way he's staring out at the endlessly dancing snowflakes. "This is, like. I've been procrastinating, and now..."

  
"Now what? You can control the weather?"

  
Dan's distant look dissipates as quickly as it'd arrived, and he looks at Phil with a glint in his dark eyes.

  
"Right, yeah," He says, deadpan. "The whole writing thing's just a side gig. I actually have full control over the elements."

  
Phil laughs.

  
"In that case, I wanna lodge a formal complaint about all that rain last summer."

  
"It was good for the plants," Dan says, with a grin. His smile falters after a moment, and he picks nervously at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans. "I was here last summer."

  
"Really?"

  
"Had a draft to finish. And - and I like being alone, I guess."

  
The words hang heavy in the air for a moment.

  
"You know," Phil says, eyes carefully trained on the indistinct world beyond the window. "I - I don't have to be in here, right? I - I can go back next door and-"

  
"No, no-"

  
"I just don't want you, like, putting up with me 'cause you're being _polite_ , or whatever."

  
"It's not like that," Dan says. "I shouldn't have..." He looks at Phil for a moment, the eye contact hitting him like a little jolt of electricity. "I always - it's a habit, I guess. Being by myself. And I used to love it, but - but I dunno now." He pauses. "I guess until I. Until you showed up with the post and - and it was nice to have someone here. Not that I'm trying to, like, guilt trip you into staying in here 'cause I'm, like, pathetic and want the company, God, that's so tragic-"

  
"No," Phil says. There's this unidentifiable feeling deep in his chest, an ache he doesn't have a name for. "Look, I'm gonna stay because I want to stay, alright?"

  
They look at each other in silence for a moment. Dan looks like a painting, somehow, something about the way he's illuminated in the silvery-white light from the window, hair falling over his forehead in endearing wispy curls that Phil's idiotic fingers twitch with wanting to brush away.

  
"Alright," Dan says, the words barely a breath.

  
Phil nods. He feels hot and stupid, everything too intense for two strangers stuck in snow together. 

  
"Also," He says, needing to do anything to get rid of the weird tension he feels. "I can't light a fire to save my life. If you send me back in there I'll burn the whole place down. It'll be, like - what's that lady called, the one who got married and then set herself on fire. From, like, Jane Austen, or whatever."

  
"Miss Havisham," Dan says. "Great Expectations. It's _Charles Dickens_ , not Jane Austen, oh my _God_."

  
But he's laughing, shoulders shaking with it.

  
"Shut up," Phil says. "God, that English degree was just a waste of money."

  
"Fuck off, I can't speak to you. You have a whole English degree and you thought Miss Havisham was an Austen character. Go back next door and freeze."

  
"Go back to sleep, and starve," Phil says automatically, in what he thinks is a passable impression of the Vine. 

  
They laugh for way too long after that. It's the kind of laughter that Phil loves the most, where you think you're done and then eye contact with the other person is enough to set you off again.

  
"Ok, so we stick together," Dan says, more to the snow than to Phil. "God forbid you go next door and turn into a Jane Austen character. Jesus Christ."

  
"Dunno what you're on about," Phil says. "I'd look great in, like, breeches, or whatever."

  
Dan rolls his eyes.

  
"One of those flouncy bustle things and a corset."

  
"Only on special occasions," Phil says.

  
Dan shakes his head and gets up.

  
"Gonna let the snow get me. Frostbite suddenly doesn't sound so bad."

  
"Shut up," Phil says, watching him cross the room to the kitchen. He starts filling up the kettle and fetching clean mugs from the draining board, and Phil helplessly watches.

  
This is what it'd feel like, he thinks, treacherous and awful. If he was in a relationship with someone. Soft domestic moments like this - coffee and stupid bickering. He hadn't realised how sharp the ache for something like that was until this exact moment, watching Dan shuffle around on the floorboards in his socked feet, humming under his breath.

  
"This is weird," Dan says, as if he somehow read Phil's mind.

  
"Sorry?" Phil says, face hot.

  
"Like, this," He says. The kettle hisses loudly and he moves back into the living room, hovering by the sofa, fingers drumming on the cushions. "Not the snowed in thing, just..." He makes some vague gesture between the two of them.

  
"Being stuck with me?" Phil supplies. "This is only day one. Not even the whole day yet, wait 'til it's a week and you wanna throttle me."

  
He expects Dan to make a joke, to roll his eyes again, but he doesn't.

  
"It's weird 'cause it's not weird. Does that make sense?"

  
Phil swallows, unsure what to say.

  
"Like I said," He says. "Wait a week then we'll see how you feel."

  
-

  
It reminds Phil of university. At uni he'd been tossed into an ocean of new people, in classes and at home, sharing bathrooms and toothpaste with people he'd never seen before in his entire life. The only options had been to swim or drown.

  
It's like that, except on a much smaller scale. He and Dan have been thrown together by circumstance, outlandish chance, and now they only have each other. All in a matter of days.

  
There's that same feeling, though, the same sense of carrying on, of forming close bonds because there's little else you can do. They spend their days alternating between companionable silence and long conversations.

  
Dan finds out that Phil doesn't like cheese and tells him he deserves to freeze to death. Phil finds out Dan plays the piano and gets his words caught in his throat at the thought of his fingers dancing tenderly across the keys of some beautiful old piano, head bowed, long eyelashes dark against his cheeks.

  
Dan dropped out of university. He lets that one slip on the third day. The snow has stopped outside, but the sky is dark, the hint that it isn't quite over yet. Phil's making pasta, because it's the only thing that the store cupboard really has an abundance of, and Dan is digging through the shelves with his phone as a torch to find pesto.

  
"Sorry?" Phil says. He hops up to sit on the kitchen side, pulling his cup of coffee close to him and tucking his cold fingers around it as he looks out of the back window of the cottage, not that he can see much beyond the icy glass.

  
"Uni," Dan calls, voice accompanied by scrapes and slides and thuds as he moves things around in the cupboard. "Dropped out. Oh, here it is."

  
He bursts out of the cupboard holding a jar and with a giant cobweb in his hair.

  
"Oh God."

  
"What?" Dan says, looking at the jar as though there's something about it that must've offended Phil. "It's green. Do you prefer red? I'm so sorry the kitchen has let you down today, sir-"

  
"Shut up," Phil says, setting his coffee down and slipping off the side, walking over to Dan. "You've got a cobweb in your hair."

  
"Fuck off, oh my God," Dan says, voice suddenly high and panicky. "Get it out. Is there a spider there? Phil oh my God-"

  
"Don't freak out," Phil says, even though he's hardly the biggest fan of spiders himself. He pulls a face and Dan rears away from him like he'd slapped him, so he grabs his arm to stop him. "What are you gonna do, flail 'til it's gone? It's just a _cobweb_ , it's not gonna hurt you."

  
"I'll drop one on your face when you're asleep," Dan says. "See how you like it."

  
"Stop moving," Phil says, and picks the cobweb out. Just touching it sends a shudder through his whole body, but it's very quickly gone, dropped on the floor.

  
"Don't just throw it," Dan says. "If you've released a thousand spiders in here now-"

  
"You'll do what? Slander me in your next book?" Phil says, but he looks at the floor, kicking the cobweb away with his socked foot. "There's no spiders on it, it's fine."

  
"If there's one in my _hair_ -"

  
"Jesus Christ," Phil says, and runs his hand over the side of Dan's head where the cobweb was. Predictably there's nothing but the softness of his hair, curls catching between Phil's fingers. "There, see? Nothing."

  
He doesn't mean to speak so quietly. He also doesn't mean to leave his hand there for so long, feeling the warmth of Dan's scalp through his hair, the pair of them so close that when Dan exhales he feels it on his top lip.

  
"So, uh," Phil says, tearing himself away, turning to fetch his coffee, ignoring the feeling coursing through him, like his blood is steaming in his veins. "Uni, you said?"

  
"Oh, yeah," Dan says. He sets the jar of pesto down on the side and wanders off across the room, picking blankets up off the floor. "Couldn't hack it. Stayed long enough, to, like, be extremely gay, and that's it."

  
Phil snorts then, actually looking over at him.

  
"Big mood," He says. "I'm sure that's a universal thing. Just, like, releasing the gay 'cause you've left home and there's no chance of your grandma finding out."

  
"Basically," Dan says, grinning. "I liked that part, just - just not the actual studying part so much."

  
"What did you...?"

  
"Oh, Law," Dan says, pulling a face even as he says it.

  
"Ew."

  
"My reaction. Or not, I guess. I just wanted to be Elle Woods, let's be real."

  
"I bet pink is _so_ your colour," Phil says, laughing.

  
"Fuck you, Mr Toxic Masculinity, it is!" He pauses, his own extensively black wardrobe speaking for itself. "Alright, like. I don't wear a lot of pink, but..."

  
"Exactly," Phil says. "That's what I meant. Pink's a great colour." 

  
There's a hiss behind him - the bubbling pan of pasta has foamed up and started dripping over the edges and onto the stove. It's a team effort to rescue it - Dan grabbing a teatowel and Phil digging in the cupboards for a colander, but before long the pair of them are sitting in calm silence on the floor around the coffee table, eating.

  
"It's started again," Dan says, nodding towards the window. Phil turns around to look - sure enough, there are more white flakes drifting past the glass.

  
"It can't go on forever, surely," Phil says. "Like, what if it covers the windows? Don't people go mad after a bit if they can't see sunlight?"

  
"What sunlight?" Dan points out.

  
"Ok, true," Phil concedes. He spears some pasta onto his fork, thinking. "D'you think we'll be alright?"

  
Dan scoffs.

  
"'Course," He says, taking a sip of water. "We should make a pact, though. Not to eat each other if the worst comes to it."

  
"The sharpest knife we've got is a bread knife," Phil reminds him. "If you think I'm gonna sit there sawing your leg off for five hours you've got another thing coming."

  
Dan's face is serious but his eyes are bright.

  
"Really comforting how your only issue with eating me is how difficult I'd be to prepare. I'm so soothed. Absolutely not reevaluating my thoughts on your axe murderer status, no sir."

  
"Piss off," Phil says, grinning helplessly. He holds a hand up. "I solemnly swear not to eat you if it comes to it. No matter how sick I get of pasta."

  
"God, first cheese and now pasta?" Dan says. "I bet you hate dogs too."

  
"I don't hear you swearing you won't eat me. Suddenly the bread knife is a tempting option."

  
"Obviously I won't," Dan says. "We're not gonna run out of food, anyway. We both have freezers. It'll be a few weeks at most, and - and if it goes on longer then we'll figure it out."

  
It's stupid. Really really stupid, but Phil is soothed by Dan's words. He's soothed by Dan's everything, if he's honest. He can't hide from the fact that they fit together in strange ways, ways he's never fit with anyone before. It feels like they're old friends, like they've been living together for months, not days.

  
It's a feeling that scares him. It's all too much, and it has been since that first morning in the cupboard. Phil feels like his brain is just out of control, a cart rolling downhill with no brakes that he has no choice but to cling to for dear life.

  
"To getting through the ice age," He says, holding up his glass of Ribena.

  
Dan clinks his glass of water with Phil's.

  
"We'll be ok," He says, firmly.

  
It's not that Phil doesn't believe him. He's not even all that worried, he's - he's elated. He's secretly _glad_ to be stuck in this impossible situation, the two of them forced to spend time together. That probably makes him an awful person, but he's started waiting until he's alone in his own cottage at night before he lets that worry consume him.

  
"Yeah, we will," Phil says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really sorry about the delay on this update! I really struggled with writing this for some reason - i felt like i had no ideas and then suddenly all the ideas all at once
> 
> thank you so much to anyone who's read this, left kudos or commented. It means so much to me that people are enjoying this 💖💖💖💖
> 
> Andrea, as always you are an angel and a champion beta 🥰🥰🥰

"This is mad," Martyn says when Phil calls him a few days later. He's sitting cross-legged on his made bed, a little pile of washing abandoned by the bedroom door, ready to be taken downstairs. "Isn't there, like, mountain rescue, or something?"

  
"We're not _dying_."

  
"You're _trapped_ , Phil. What if you run out of food?"

  
"We won't."

  
"Ah, yeah, don't think I didn't notice that, too. _We_ , not I."

  
"I..." Phil feels his face flare with heat. "If we stick together we'll run out of firewood slower, and-"

  
"I'm not complaining! If he's, like, even an ounce more sensible than you then I'm absolutely here for it." A pause. "Can you not, like, melt it? The snow, I mean. With fire, or something."

  
Phil laughs.

  
"I'm sorry, what was that you were just saying about _me_ not being sensible? _Melt it with fire_? Martyn, Jesus Christ."

  
"Yeah, ok, don't do that," Martyn says, hurriedly. "Regretted it as soon as I said it."

  
"Good," Phil says. "I'm gonna go, anyway. Need coffee."

  
"Shocked you managed to string a sentence together without it, to be honest."

  
"Ha ha," Phil says, but he's smiling. "Love you."

  
"Love you too. Don't fucking think about setting the snow on fire-"

  
Phil hangs up with a beep, laughing to himself.

  
-

  
When he trails downstairs, yawning, he can hear Dan singing. Well, humming, really, under his breath, unselfconscious. Phil follows the sound straight through the open cupboard doors and into the other cottage, where Dan is-

  
"What the hell are you doing?"

  
Every available surface in the kitchen is covered in flour. Dan's phone is resting on the table, playing something soft and calm sounding. And Dan is, well. 

  
"Making bread," He explains, cheerfully, and goes back to punching the living daylights out of the ball of dough in front of him.

  
Phil blinks, then blinks again, then goes over to the kettle. He rescues it from an island of flour to fill it, then clicks it on and sits at the table so he can look at Dan some more and confirm he isn't actually seeing things.

  
"There was a bread mix in the back of the cupboard," Dan says, before Phil can even ask. "There are a few, actually. And I've never made bread so I thought - well, I've seen Bake Off. I know about _proving_ , and whatever. So why not?"

  
The previous evening, they'd ended up sprawled out on the floor for whatever reason, shoulders bumping, sharing little sips of a mostly-finished bottle of wine Dan had dug out of the back of a cupboard. Dan had been warm next to him, their arms and shoulders touching, and there was something oddly electric about how if Dan took a longer drink the lip of the bottle was warm against Phil's mouth when he passed it back. A kiss once removed.

  
Dan had admitted that he was starting to get worried. Not about the snow - it'd only been a week and a bit, and it wasn't as if either of them had anywhere to be, not really - but about his book.

  
"I haven't written anything," He'd admitted. His lips were red from the wine. There wasn't nearly enough wine between them to get drunk - even Phil wasn't that much of a lightweight - but he couldn't stop looking, heart pounding like a drum in his chest. "I've got nothing. No ideas at all. It scares the shit out of me."

  
And now, in the pale snow-tipped light streaming in through the kitchen window - bread.

  
For a second, Phil thinks he won't say anything. He waits for the kettle to click off, then gets up and makes them both coffee on autopilot, navigating the wastelands of flour and bread mix packets as if he's in a dream. Once he's back in his chair, his coffee in front of him and Dan's steaming across the table, he speaks.

  
"So not procrastinating at all, then."

  
Dan stops kneading the dough for a second.

  
"You sound like someone who doesn't want fresh bread in, like, an hour."

  
"No, I mean. I do. And. And, like, it's a good way to pass the time. It's just you said you were worried."

  
Dan doesn't answer. He's working the dough into a ball, and Phil doesn't know anything about making bread but he knows that Dan's forearms are mesmerising in a way that probably means he's really creepy and should isolate himself indefinitely next door.

  
After a second, Dan eases the ball of dough off the floury surface and into a mixing bowl, and throws a clean tea towel over it with a flourish.

  
"Just call me Paul Hollywood," He says after he's washed his hands, dropping into the seat opposite Phil and gratefully pulling his cup of coffee close to him. Phil thinks maybe they're just gonna ignore the whole procrastinating thing, but then Dan continues. "I know it's a mess. The writing thing."

  
"It's ok," Phil says, feeling guilty. "It's - it's none of my business, I just - you said you were worried and. I dunno, I don't want you to be worried."

  
Dan grins after a second, eyes bright over the rim of his coffee cup.

  
"Is that your special power? Making anxiety go away?"

  
"God, I wish," Phil says. He puts his coffee cup down and wiggles his fingers in Dan's direction in a pantomime of a wizard casting a spell. "Anything?"

  
Dan laughs. There's something so soft about his face when he laughs, about the way his eyes crinkle up and his dimple. It makes him look much younger, somehow.

  
"Yep, yeah," He says. "I'm cured. Damn, Phil. You should charge."

  
"Who says I'm not? I'll send you the bill when all this is over." He pauses. "Is there anything I can do to help? I feel like maybe it's my fault. I'm a distracting presence. You're used to writing by yourself, and-"

  
"No, no," Dan says. "I was procrastinating for weeks before you arrived. And it's nice to have you here - to have _someone_ here." He sighs. "I'll write _something_ , eventually. It's not like we're leaving anytime soon."

  
Phil hums in agreement, taking another drink of coffee.

  
"Just let me know if there's anything I can do," He says.

  
-

  
"Oh God, no, what are you doing?" Dan says, a little while later.

  
He'd nipped for a shower, and while he was gone Phil had set himself up on the sofa with more coffee, a plate of toast for the two of them and Dan's book, open at the crisp white title page.

  
"I made us toast," Phil says. "And I'm reading your book."

  
"Yeah, I can see that," Dan says, edging around the sofa to the armchair, picking up the green cushion there and sitting cross-legged, hugging it to his chest like a little kid with a teddy bear. "You know, I only gave you that to show off. Cute guy shows up next door, give him your gayest novel."

  
Phil feels like he missed a step going downstairs at the word _cute_ , at the idea of _Dan_ thinking he was cute. But Dan says it so nonchalantly, so casually, a throwaway comment - he must just be one of those people who's open with compliments in a friendly way. That's it.

  
"Yeah, well," Phil says, in a valiant attempt to continue the conversation like a normal person. "I wanna read it. I read that stupid straight book next door, didn't I? I need to cleanse my palate. My brain palate."

  
Dan looks at him.

  
"You really do just say words, don't you? Like throwing spaghetti at the wall."

  
" _Saying words_ is a favoured form of communication, Dan. I can start folding notes into little paper aeroplanes and throwing them at your head, if you want."

  
"Fuck off," Dan says, laughing, and throws the cushion at him. Phil just throws it back, flipping him off. "Well, just. If you're gonna actually read it, then. Don't say I didn't warn you that it's not, like, _high art_ , or anything."

  
"High art's overrated," Phil says, and means it. "Have some toast, loser."

  
-

  
Phil is barely one chapter into the book when he realises that his apprehensions about starting to read it had been entirely correct.

  
He'd been worried that the book would be like some kind of window into Dan's head, into secret parts of him that he could only share with strangers under the veil of fiction. He'd been worried that once he started - once he saw it all, once he experienced Dan's writers' voice, his perspective - that he'd, well.

  
That he'd feel even more creepily _enamoured_ than he already does, to be perfectly honest.

  
And he'd been right to worry. Dan's protagonist is equal turns funny and heartbreakingly sad, and the romance sucks Phil in from the second the love interest is introduced.

  
It takes him a few days to get through. He reads and Dan clicks around on his laptop and occasionally, anxiously asks him if everything's ok. They eat toast made from Dan's homemade bread, and drink hot chocolate in the waning firelight in the evening, reddish-gold of the guttering flames illuminating them.

When Phil finally puts the book down for the night on the second day, he's met by an orange-tinted Dan, pensive and solemn, staring into the fire where he sits, cross legged on the hearth rug.

  
Phil slips off the sofa and shuffles over to join him.

  
"You're a genius," He says, voice a little croaky from lack of use.

  
Dan blinks - whatever daydream is gripping him takes a moment to loosen its hold.

  
"You're, like. Obligated to say that 'cause we're trapped together by a freak snowstorm."

  
"No," Phil says. "I mean, yeah, we _are_ trapped by a snowstorm, which - that's still blowing my mind, to be honest. But you are. A genius, I mean."

  
Phil can't tell if Dan is really blushing or if it's the firelight playing tricks.

  
"So you like it, then," He says, hesitantly.

  
"God, yeah," Phil breathes. "It's just. God. I feel like I'm watching a film inside my head. And it's _killing_ me, like - they're gonna get together in the end, right?"

  
Dan laughs.

  
"Where are you up to?"

  
"The wedding." Dan just waggles his eyebrows at that. " _Stop_ , come on. They get together, right? It's - it's a romance, they _have_ to."

  
"I couldn't possibly comment," Dan says, but his eyes are bright. "You - you're really enjoying it?"

  
" _Yes_ ," Phil says, with feeling, pushing Dan in the arm. "God, it's. Are all your books like this?"

  
"I-I guess," Dan says, a little flustered. 

  
"Can I read more when I'm done? You have all those others, right?"

  
Dan looks at him for a second. Phil feels strangely muggy headed, like he just woke up from a particularly vivid dream. He feels the same way as when he leaves the cinema after watching a movie, like the events are playing behind his eyelids - like he can do anything, be anyone, just because of what he just saw. Only this time it's because of a book - Dan's book. 

  
"You don't have to say all of this just to be nice, you know," Dan says after a moment, uncertainly. "I didn't give you the book to, like, make it so you had to say nice things about it. If I'd known we were gonna get snowed in together I wouldn't have even bothered, I just..."

  
"Dan," Phil says. "Stop. You're being an idiot."

  
"Idiot is my default state," He says, wryly. "You really didn't get that by now?"

  
"Well, you're being _more_ of an idiot now. I _really_ like it, ok? Really. Not 'cause we're snowed in together or 'cause I feel awkward or 'cause I have to like it - just because I actually do. You're - you're great. Ok?"

  
The firelight catches in Dan's dark eyes. It paints his face in gold and Phil can't look away - from his curls or his eyelashes or his stupid, lovely, permanently chapped lips.

  
"Ok," Dan says, quietly.

  
-

  
Phil finishes the book in bed the next morning.

  
He lies there for a moment, sniffling to himself. Bright white daylight is spilling through the gap in the curtains and he watches it for a second, tears running down the side of his face and landing cold on his ears. Then he rolls over and calls Martyn.

  
"Are you ok?" is one of the first things he says when he picks up. "You sound all stuffy. You're not getting a cold, are you?"

  
"Maybe," Phil says, embarrassed.

  
"Of course you are. Please don't freeze to death. They'd have to, like, excavate your body with an icepick or something. Like that thing where people fall down glaciers or something and they find them years later and they're perfectly preserved, or whatever."

  
"You know, talking to you really sets me up for the rest of the day. I feel rejuvenated."

  
"Shut up," Martyn says. "What's the snow level like today? Any sign of a thaw?"

  
Phil crawls out of bed, stroking a gentle hand against Dan's closed book as he goes, like it's a puppy or something.

  
"Oh God, no," He says, peering out through the frosted glass at the indistinct white landscape outside. "Still snowing out there. Jesus."

  
"Do you want me to try and call mountain rescue? 'Cause I can find the website no problem. This is messed up, Phil."

  
"It's fine," He says. "Honestly, it's ok." A pause. "I finished Dan's book just now."

  
"Oh, the gay book?"

  
"You're obsessed," Phil says, flatly. "I'm pretty sure they're all gay, but. Yeah, the gay book."

  
Martyn whistles.

  
"Any good?"

  
Phil's heart flutters in his chest at the thought of it. At the thought of Dan last night, drenched in firelight and utterly beautiful.

  
"Yeah, it was ok," He says, vaguely.

  
-

  
When Phil goes next door, Dan is nowhere to be found. Phil makes coffee in silence, head full of what he just read, replaying scenes in his head as he spoons sugar into his mug and digs milk out of the fridge.

  
He drinks two cups of coffee and is about to make a third when the stairs creak and Dan wanders into the room, yawning.

  
"God, light the fire," He mumbles, moving over to the fireplace and throwing logs into the grate.

  
"You'll have to show me how. Martyn has me convinced I'll just burn the place down."

  
"Martyn’s probably right," Dan says, without looking up. Before long, there's a fire crackling, and Dan is holding his hand out for Phil's empty mug. "Coffee?"

  
"Please," Phil says, handing it over.

  
They're quiet for a moment after that. Phil still can't believe how easy it is to be with Dan - so easy that it scares him. It's nothing like being with someone he's only known a matter of days, it's like - like falling back into an old routine, spending time with someone he knew a long time ago. Phil's brain doesn't feel compelled to fill the silence with his own worries, wondering what he did wrong, why Dan isn't talking to him, the usual endless internal monologue that plagues him when spending time with new people.

  
He can just _be_ with Dan. It's effortless. Just the two of them, existing together in comfortable silence.

  
"I finished the book, by the way," Phil says, when Dan brings the coffee over, joining him on the sofa instead of the armchair.

  
Dan eyes him, warily.

  
"Oh, God. And?"

  
"I cried," Phil says, honestly, folding his cold fingers around the hot coffee cup. "It's amazing, Dan. I haven't read anything like that in a long time. No wonder you're - you're some bigshot author, Jesus."  
"I'm not a _bigshot author_ ," Dan says. "God, what does that even _mean_? I just - I just write things."

  
"Amazing things," Phil says. "Seriously. Can I read another?"

  
Dan looks at him for a second, like he's trying to gauge if Phil's being serious or not.

  
"I - I packed them all away. I guess I could get another one out for you, if you want."

  
"Please," Phil says, with feeling. "But - maybe tomorrow? I think I need today to just, like, process it all."

  
Dan's cheeks are flushed pink.

  
"Thanks," He says, awkwardly.

  
"Thank _you_ , you mean. Will you sign my copy?"

  
Phil only says it to make Dan smile, and it does the trick.

  
"Oh, fuck off."

  
"Just don't actually dedicate it to me," Phil says, grinning. "Personalised copies really harm the resale value."

  
"I hate you," Dan says, but his smile is bright.

  
-

  
Phil makes dinner that evening.

  
He digs around in the freezer and the cupboards and manages to cobble together enough ingredients to make a halfway decent cottage pie. He even unearths the garlic and onions Dan must've used in the lasagna in the very back of the cupboard.

  
"Ooh, hey, look," Dan says. He's hunting for stock cubes on the other side of the cupboard - when Phil looks over at him, he's holding a dusty bottle of something or other. "God, d'you reckon this has been here for, like, centuries?" 

  
Phil momentarily abandons the garlic to go over and have a look.

  
"It's port," He says, when Dan hands him the bottle, wiping the dust off the label. "And I'd say it's pretty recent."

  
"Alright, Antiques Roadshow," Dan says, peering over his shoulder. "What makes you say that?"

  
"Maybe this part of the label that says Tesco," Phil says, laughing as he hands the bottle back. "You idiot."

  
Dan laughs.

  
"We are so drinking this later," He says, and goes back to looking. It's only when Phil's carried all of the ingredients he needs in a big saucepan and is about to start slicing onions when Dan emerges with the port and the stock cubes, a box under his arm.

  
"I hit the jackpot," He says, setting the two items down on the table and holding the box out to Phil.

  
"Oh God," Phil says, half-laughing. It's a really old Monopoly set, the red and white box faded and yellowed with age. "No way, you're kidding me."

  
"Yes way," Dan says, with barely restrained glee. "Port and Monopoly, this is so happening."

  
"Such a bad idea," Phil says, but he can't lie - it sounds like a lot of fun.

  
"That's a yes, right?" Dan says, peering into the box. "It looks like all the pieces are here. I'm being the dog."

  
"Oh my God, go away," Phil says, laughing. "Or at least peel the potatoes. We'll never get to play at this rate."

  
“God, can’t we just _not_ peel them? There's so many.”

  
“I'm gonna pretend you didn’t say that,” Phil says, handing him a potato peeler.

  
-

  
When the pie's in the oven, Phil lingers in the kitchen, tidying up. Dan retired to the sofa shortly after the potatoes had started boiling - he's been lounging there ever since, looking for all the world like a painting, something that belongs in a gallery to be marvelled at.

  
"I went out with this guy once," Dan says. He's sprawled out, all limbs, hair falling across his forehead. Phil's breath catches in his throat and he has to look away, peering at the safety of his own bitten fingernails. "I didn't ever, like, think about writing. Not really. Not seriously, like - stupid little bits in notebooks, that was all. But this guy was a writer and - he wrote, like, serious stuff, I guess. Crime under a pseudonym. Had, like, noticeboards with pins and string all over the flat, like that meme."

  
"God."

  
"Yeah," Dan says, pulling a face. "It would've been cute if it was literally anyone else, but he was - ugh. The most pretentious bloke in existence. D'you ever look back at exes and think...?"

  
" _What the fuck was I thinking_?" Phil supplies, grinning. "Yeah, all the time."

  
"Mm. Anyway, long story short, I start writing gay shit. Just for fun, like...just 'cause I couldn't find anything I wanted to read. And it blew up, I guess. People really liked it." He breathes out, hair fluttering on his forehead. "And he didn't."

  
"Oh. Jealous?"

  
"Really. Only he couldn't admit it, 'cause - 'cause he had this whole superiority complex. 'Course he did. Couldn't stand that I'd got somewhere writing _trashy romance_."

  
"He _said_ that?" Phil asks, boggling.

  
"More or less," Dan says, smiling. "I remember there was this event, when the first book got published, and we had this argument in the taxi and he was like, _it's not exactly Shakespeare, is it, Dan_."

  
" _Bastard_ ," Phil says, with feeling.

  
"Yeah. So I broke up with him, obviously."

  
"Obviously," Phil says. "Jesus, what - imagine, like. I mean, first of all, imagine not just being happy for someone you're meant to love. And then, like - your books are so _good_."

  
"You've only read one," Dan reminds him, his cheeks pink.

  
"Doesn't matter," Phil says, staunchly. "I haven't enjoyed a book as much as that in ages."

  
"Maybe your taste is rubbish," Dan teases, after a moment. "You read all of that het nonsense next door, don't think I forgot."

  
"There's no wifi."

  
"Yeah, no wonder you liked my book so much."

  
"Stop, oh my God," Phil says. He moves over so he can prod Dan in his socked foot to make his point. "How can you be a successful writer and still doubt your own work?"

  
"It's my special power," Dan says, shuffling until he's sat up, legs crossed, leaving a space on the sofa for Phil. Phil joins him because he can't see why he shouldn't.

  
"First you could control the weather and now this."

  
"Yep. I got bitten by a radioactive book last year."

  
Phil snorts out a laugh.

  
"Shut up," He says. "I think you've been shutting yourself up in here for too long. You've forgotten what other people say and think."

  
"That's kind of the idea."

  
"I mean the good stuff," Phil corrects. 

  
Dan looks at him for a moment, then away, eyes on the fire crackling in the hearth. Phil thinks he's gone too far - he's overstepped his boundaries, he should've just kept quiet and said nothing.

  
Except then Dan speaks.

  
"The best bit is I don't even _like_ being alone." His eyes meet Phil's then, smile bashful and humourless. "It started as, like, a way to focus. To write more. And then, like. I realised with nobody around to keep me in check I could do what I wanted. Which, yeah, could be writing three thousand words in one go. But usually it's, like, ok, I can't be bothered to cook lunch today and that's fine 'cause - 'cause nobody's around to say anything about it. Or I don't have to shower for days on end 'cause it's not like I'm seeing anyone or going anywhere."

  
"Dan," Phil says, quiet.

  
"And then, like. It's lonely, y'know? Obviously being alone was the point, but. It sits on top of you, I guess. I dunno." He pauses. "That's why, I. I feel so bad about it, but - but I _like_ this. That's awful, isn't it? You're literally stuck with me, and. And I like it."

  
He doesn't meet Phil's eye for what feels like an age after that.

  
"Hey," Phil says, softly. He feels hot and stupid and nervous, skin prickling, but somehow he manages to rest his hand on Dan's ankle, just for a second. "If you're awful for that, then. Then so am I. 'Cause...'cause I like it too."

  
"So we're both awful," Dan says.

  
"Basically," Phil says. "Now how's that timer going on? Pie then Monopoly. You're gonna regret suggesting this."

  
-

  
"I do not regret suggesting this," Dan says, hours later, only slurring his words a little. " _At all_. Pay up, loser."

  
"You're cheating," Phil says. "I know you are 'cause - 'cause you've got like twenty hotels."

  
Dan's laughing helplessly, hunched over his half-full glass. Phil ends up laughing too, all of the little red houses on the board seeming like the funniest thing in the world.

  
"I-I-" Dan shakes his head, laughing too much to finish the sentence. "You owe me _so_ much rent."

  
"Fuck off," Phil says. His stomach hurts from laughter.

  
"So much. I'm gonna - gonna - whatsit. Fish that collects money."

  
"A what?" It's enough to set him off again, giggling into his glass as he tries to take a sip. "There are no - no fish in Monopoly."

  
"Not in _Monopoly_ , in real life."

  
"Fish don't collect money, Dan."

  
"Not a _real_ fish, God. I dunno if it _is_ a fish actually. Is it a fish?"

  
"Got no idea what you're on about, not gonna lie," Phil somehow manages to say. The words feel stretchy, like elastic falling off his tongue. Dan's frowning thoughtfully, and even his frown lines are lovely, somehow. "You've got. Your face. 'S'really nice."

  
That distracts Dan from whatever he's thinking about, eyes darting up to meet Phil's across the tiny table.

  
"No."

  
"It is! You're all, like," Phil waves, vaguely, hand all floppy and uncooperative. "Your skin's nice and - and you have dimples."

  
"My face is broken, you mean," Dan says. "That's what a dimple is. Face mal-malf - error."

  
"No," Phil says, in the vehement tones of the spectacularly drunk. "Just means you're pretty."

  
Dan makes a stupid noise of disbelief.

  
"What?" Phil asks. "What does that mean?"

  
"You calling me pretty. _You_."

  
"My eyesight isn't that bad."

  
"Didn't mean that," Dan says. He looks at Phil, expression strangely serious. He reaches out to touch Phil's face, and Phil's heart leaps in his chest. First it's the tentative brush of fingertips, then his palm, thumb tracing Phil's bottom lip, touch maddeningly light. " _You're_ pretty. That's - that's it. You've got it backwards, saying I am. Too much port for you."

  
"Says you," Phil says, heart beating hard. He feels like he's on fire, unbearable heat everywhere Dan's touching him. "Mr twenty five hotels."

  
"Shut up," Dan says, his smile soft. His eyes are flickering to Phil's mouth and back up again. He can hardly dare to breathe, to believe that this is happening. "S'like. Fate, that all this happened. And I don't even _believe_ in fate."

  
Phil takes a shaky breath in. When he tries to wet his bottom lip he catches Dan's thumb, and there's something in Dan's eyes in that moment that makes him feel like the ground got snatched out from beneath him.

  
He's falling, and he doesn't care.

  
"Dan," He says, hoarsely.

  
Across the room, Dan's phone rings. It's like being torn out of a dream, like being hauled onto dry land, dragged from a bewitching, underwater world. Dan's hand is gone from Phil's face before he knows it and he feels cold, the scrape of Dan's chair as he gets up and stumbles across the room to find his phone like a shock of icy water down his spine.

  
"Fuck," Dan mutters under his breath, stabbing at his phone screen. "Hello?"

  
Phil feels like he's sobering up much too fast, blinking hard. He gets to his feet and has to lean on the table for a moment, feeling like the walls are rippling around him. 

  
"The signal here's really bad, I - d'you know what - what time it is? Can we - can we talk about this tomorrow?"

  
He's hanging up by the time Phil's got to the sink, pouring his remaining port down the drain.

  
"We should, uh," Phil says, words all running into each other. "Sleep. We should sleep."

  
The way Dan looks across the room sticks in his head for the rest of the night, when he's standing unsteadily in the shower, letting the hot water rush over his skin, determinedly not thinking about how Dan's hand had felt on his skin. He thinks about Dan standing there with his phone in his hand, eyes wide and confused. Hurt, almost. God, they drank way too much.

  
"Yeah," Dan agrees, quickly. "Yeah. I'll. See you tomorrow?"

  
Phil just nods, tongue thick in his mouth, and staggers a little on his way back through the cupboards, to the cool and quiet of his own cottage.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to anyone who's read this, left kudos or commented 💖💖 I'm a bit behind on replying to comments at the moment but I promise i see them all and reading them makes me so happy, so thank you 💖💖
> 
> Andrea, you are the mvp 💗💗💗

In the morning, Phil's mouth is dry and his head aches.

  
"Mmf," He says, when he answers the phone to Martyn.

  
"You're not up? It's nearly twelve."

  
Phil rubs a sleep-crusted eye and rolls onto his back with a groan.

  
"'S'not like I've got anywhere to be," He says, voice rough and gravelly.

  
"Ok, good point. Everything alright?"

  
"Yeah. Still snowed in."

  
"You didn't even check."

  
"The window's far away," Phil says. " _You_ check. Anyway, last night it was all...it was still bad. So I'm pretty sure it's still the same. Educated guess."

  
"You need coffee," Martyn says. "And maybe, like, look at a photo of a plant. Cornelia said she read something about plants and how if people can't see them they start losing their shit. Like in caveman times, or something."

  
"Sorry," Phil says, after a moment and a yawn. "We just - we found a bottle of port last night, and-"

  
"Oh. _Oh_ , is he there?"

  
Martyn doesn't ask the question outright but he doesn't need to - it's all there in his tone of voice.

  
"No. Shut up. I'm gonna go and get coffee."

  
"Make it two. And don't forget the plants."

  
"I - I won't. Love you."

  
"Yeah yeah, you'd better," Martyn says, and hangs up with a beep.

  
Phil just lies there after that, phone abandoned on the pillow next to him, staring at the ceiling.

Snatches of memory dance behind his eyelids - Dan's smile, the bite of alcohol on his tongue, Dan's hand on his face, himself, drunk and stupid, telling Dan he's pretty...

  
The embarrassment stings. Trust him to make a total drunken fool of himself in front of someone he's stuck with indefinitely.

  
And yet. There's the dim, fuzzy memory of Dan touching his mouth, the mere thought enough to send a shudder of feeling down his spine. But Dan was drunk - they were _both_ drunk, drunk and stupid, and now he's made everything awkward.

  
At first, he plans to stay in his own cottage for the day. Except, he thinks, looking at his own pale reflection in the bathroom mirror, if things _aren't_ awkward, keeping his distance is the one surefire way to make sure they _are_.

  
And anyway, he wasn't the only one who'd got too close. He can't shake the thought of the way Dan had touched him, soft and gentle but with the promise of something else, something that sits in the pit of Phil's stomach, making him feel hot and useless.

  
It wasn't just him. So he checks his reflection for what must be the hundredth time, pokes at his hair, pulls an ugly face at himself, and makes his way through the cupboard.

  
He's ready with some stupid comment he can throw out, some light-hearted remark that'll dispel any tension. But when he walks into the other cottage, door creaking ominously in the soft quiet, it's to find Dan asleep on the sofa.

  
He's curled up in a little ball like a hibernating animal, his hair wild and all over the place. There are two cups of coffee on the coffee table in front of him - when Phil quietly edges over there and touches the back of his hand to one, it's lukewarm. Dan must've woken up, made the pair of them a drink and then fallen straight asleep again.

  
Phil stands over him for a moment, helpless and dry-mouthed. He lets himself look for a moment - at the curls sticking up every which way, his dark eyelashes, the youthfulness of his face relaxed in sleep, an echo of how he looks when he laughs.

  
Then he tears his eyes away, squeezing them shut like he can delete the memory somehow, and sits down with another of Dan's books, abandoned on the floor by the armchair.

-

  
"Oh no," Dan says, hoarsely. Phil doesn't know how long it's been - he feels like ten minutes ago he'd been struggling to focus, eyes skipping over whole sentences, and then at some indiscernible point the plot and the characters had sucked him right in, all over again.

  
"You said I could read more," Phil reminds him. He thinks about folding the page over to mark his place, but doesn't know if that's disrespectful when Dan's right there. Instead he uses his finger as a temporary bookmark and has another sip of coffee.

  
"Not that. Tell me that's not the coffee I made hours ago."

  
Phil blinks and takes another sip.

  
"Oh my _God_ ," Dan groans, throwing his arm over his eyes like a swooning maiden. "I can't even _look_ at you, that's so gross."

  
"You're the one who made it and then fell asleep," Phil reminds him.

  
Dan sits up then, groaning.

  
"I was gonna bring it to you, I think," He admits, words half obscured by a yawn. Phil's breath catches in his throat, because he's pathetic. "Like, _sorry we're both hungover and I thrashed you at Monopoly_. That kind of thing."

  
"You _cheated_."

  
Dan flaps a hand.

  
"Semantics," He says, and grins when Phil rolls his eyes. "Thoughts so far?"

  
It takes Phil a second to realise he's talking about the book.

  
"Oh," He says. "I love it. Obviously. It's great."

  
"Nothing obvious about it," Dan says. "You know, if you're reading it and thinking, _Jesus Christ this is the biggest flop,_ you can just - you can just _tell_ me, you know? I don't want you to feel like you're strong-armed into being nice about it just 'cause I'm right here. I don't care." 

  
Except everything about Dan, about his tone of voice and the look on his face, makes it painfully clear that he cares a lot. It makes Phil ache for him - that he feels he has to put up this veneer of indifference to shield himself from criticism. He thinks about the stuff with that one ex that he'd mentioned - _it's not exactly Shakespeare, is it, Dan_.

  
"I'm just telling the truth," He says, simply. "I wouldn't lie. I love it. You're brilliant, Dan."

  
Dan's adam's apple bobs in his throat. He looks lost over there - wide-eyed and alone on the sofa.

  
"Yeah, well," He says, gruffly. It's the tone of voice guys in bars use when they just eyed you up and down but are about to call you _mate_ and tell you all about their girlfriend. "So long as you know, that's all. You don't have to spare my feelings." 

  
He stretches again, hands over his head, long-sleeved shirt falling down over his wrists. Phil's throat is dry all of a sudden - it's ridiculous, like the repressed Victorian man's version of seeing someone's shirt ride up at the waist. He has to look somewhere else, down at his own bitten nails, at the glossy cover of Dan's book.

  
"I'm gonna make a coffee," Dan says, getting up.

  
"Oh, thanks," Phil says, holding his mostly-empty mug out.

  
Dan gives him this blank look of disbelief that makes him laugh.

  
"You revoked your coffee privileges when you drank that cold bullshit, Phil," He says, but he takes the mug all the same.

  
Phil smiles, opening the book again. He can't get back into it though - he's too focused on the shuffle of Dan's socked feet on the floorboards, the clink of spoons and the hiss of the kettle being switched on.

  
His head's just entirely too caught up with Dan to focus. It's like being caught up in a current - up until now, Phil was keeping his head above water with ease. Now the water's warm and inviting and he wants nothing more than to let himself go - to drift down, to let himself be enveloped.

  
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, he thinks, listening to Dan humming under his breath in the kitchen. Maybe letting go wouldn't be the worst thing he could do.

  
-

  
When Phil walks into the cottage the next morning, yawning, he's met by the sounds of furious typing. Dan's sitting hunched over his laptop in the armchair, a blanket around his shoulders. Not wanting to disturb this sudden break from procrastination, Phil creeps over to the kettle as quietly as he can, getting two clean cups off the draining board and making the pair of them coffee.

  
"I've got a dilemma," Dan says, at the same time as Phil says, "Have you eaten?"

  
They laugh at each other, grinning bashfully across the room.

  
"You first," Phil says.

  
"No," Dan admits. He looks whey-faced in the light of the laptop screen - Phil wonders just how much sleep he actually got before this burst of productiveness. "I mean, like, no, I haven't eaten."

  
"Ok," Phil says, already turning to find some bread. "What's the dilemma?"

  
Dan abandons his laptop on the coffee table and pads over to join Phil in the kitchen, leaning against the sink and watching him rummaging in the rapidly-emptying freezer.

  
"I have an idea," He says. "Like, a novel idea, but it's not what I told my agent or - or _anyone_ really - that I was writing."

  
Phil stands up, setting the hard loaf on the side with a thunk and shutting the freezer.

  
"Ok," He says, slowly. "But - surely an idea is better than nothing at all, right? Even if it's not what they were expecting."

  
"You think so?" Dan says. He's chewing on his thumbnail, frowning thoughtfully. "I feel like they'll be disappointed. I mean - I mean my agent, she's - she's used to the way I am, I guess. But a lot of people were excited about this idea, and..." He trails off, shrugging.

  
"But you weren't," Phil says. "I mean, you've been avoiding writing it."

  
"I could avoid writing literally my favourite thing in the whole world, Phil. I could be sitting here on a million quid idea and I'd still wanna, I dunno. Mess around making Spotify playlists, or whatever."

  
"Well, yeah," Phil says, because he gets that. "But I mean. You _weren't_ excited about it, were you?"

  
Dan's quiet for a moment.

  
"No," He confesses.

  
"There you go, then," Phil says. "Keep writing this. It's an idea, and - and you're making progress, right?"

  
"More than I thought I would this time yesterday, yeah."

  
"Exactly. So - so take your coffee, 'cause God forbid it goes cold." He grins at that, and Dan rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "And I'll make toast, and you - you keep writing."

  
He turns to switch the grill on and is just focusing on tearing the rapidly defrosting bread packet open when Dan speaks.

  
"How do you do that?"

  
"Force of will," Phil says, absent mindedly, just as he rips the packet open. "My desire for toast is unmatched."

  
"God, shut up," Dan says, but he's laughing. "Not that." He pauses. Phil's entirely focused on prising apart the frozen bread slices, so he misses what Dan's face looks like when he says, "I mean, you just _get it_. Like. Without me having to explain, or - or even try that much. You understand."

  
Phil swallows. He turns to look at Dan - Dan, in an oversized t-shirt that shows way too much of his collarbone and shoulder for Phil's liking, never mind his sanity. Dan, cupping his coffee close and inhaling the warmth from the spirals of steam. There's something so unutterably _soft_ about him, something that makes Phil want to walk over there and touch his exposed skin, push his unruly hair back off his forehead, gather him up into his arms. Any stupid romantic cliché that involves the two of them sounds like a wonderful idea, if he's honest.

  
"You've just been on your own for too long," Phil says, embarrassed, feeling entirely too seen by those dark eyes.

  
"No," Dan says, gaze still intent on Phil's face. "It's all you. If I was stuck here with some weird vest-wearing guy called, like..."

  
"Chad."

  
Dan laughs.

  
"Fuck, yeah. I wouldn't say this to _Chad_ , you know?"

  
"That's 'cause straight guys are like that, Dan. They live in a whole different world."

  
"Yeah, but. It's you. It's just you."

  
There's something terrifying about the admission, spoken in the cold blue light of the morning, the pair of them still sleep-rumpled and slow. Phil feels like every part of him that Dan's eyes touch burns like a brand, a gaze strong enough to leave marks behind.

  
"I'm just glad you don't think I'm annoying," Phil says, in an attempt to dissuade the weight of Dan's gaze. "And you should really - you should write. Before the inspiration goes, or whatever."

  
Dan makes a big show of rolling his eyes and slouching his shoulders, all intensity from a moment ago gone, as if it had never been there.

  
"Alright, _mum_ ," He says, and shuffles off back to the armchair.

  
Phil just stands there for a moment, frozen bread in his hands and blood thrumming in his ears.

  
-

  
It's like that one drunk evening had unlocked a floodgate of things that Phil hadn't let himself feel before, feelings he thought were long dead - old nerve endings brought fizzing back into life by Dan's gentle touch. Phil wakes up in the morning and the scared part of him wants the thaw to have started - yellow sunlight to be spilling onto the faded old rug in the cottage bedroom. He feels like that'll be his only escape from this situation.

  
And yet he's dreading the thaw, too. He doesn't want to leave. The thought of the pair of them retreating back into their respective cottages as strangers once more makes him feel cold. He's comfortable with Dan, with the way things are. It feels _right_ , the pair of them bickering as they make dinner out of dwindling supplies, swapping stories. It feels like this is how things should be all the time.

  
It's hard to think that not that long ago he'd stood at a wedding in an uncomfortable suit, lost in a forest of happy couples, and thought longingly of being alone in his flat. Now when he thinks of the quietness of home it's jarring - the thought of mornings without Dan's grumbling, without his singing under his breath when he thinks Phil isn't paying attention, the pair of them lounging around together with nowhere to go.

  
"Are they gonna get together, then," Phil says, the next afternoon. He's curled up on the sofa reading, the crackling of the fire and the tapping of Dan's fingers flying across the keyboard is lulling him into a doze.

  
"Mm?"

  
"In this," Phil says, helpfully, waving the paperback.

  
"Oh. Oh, yeah. Always. I hate unhappy endings."

  
"You know," Phil says, watching Dan pause, eyes scanning the laptop screen in front of him. "Talking to you I'd think you were, like, this massive cynic."

  
"I am, that's me."

  
"Yeah, but. You're just a romantic, really. And you hate unhappy endings."

  
Dan blinks and actually looks up at Phil, then.

  
"Everyone hates unhappy endings," He says, cheeks pink. "People just pretend they don't 'cause, like, caring isn't cool."

  
Phil tilts his head, conceding the point.

  
"I just think it's nice, that's all," He says. "You're like - like a rolo."

  
"Round," Dan suggests, deadpan. "Full of sugar."

  
"Shut up, you know exactly what I mean. All - all soft inside. Like, secretly."

  
"Rolos aren't _secretly_ soft inside, Phil," Dan says, with the air of someone explaining something to a small child. "The selling point is that you know the caramel's there, otherwise there's no point-"

  
"Alright, Mr Metaphor," Phil says, but he's smiling. "You're just deflecting 'cause you know I'm right."

  
There's silence for a moment.

  
"It - it was actually a simile," Dan says. He's grinning, this unbearable shit-eating grin that makes Phil's stomach feel light and strange. "The - _like a rolo_ , it's a simile."

  
"Yeah, well, we can't all be bestselling authors," Phil says, pulling a stupid face. Dan pulls one right back before he goes back to his writing.

  
After Phil's made the pair of them coffee, he crawls back under his blanket on the sofa.

  
"Can I read some of that? Like - is that gonna end happily? Are they gonna get together?"

  
"I, er." Dan takes a second to smile for some reason. "I dunno."

  
"Oh God," Phil says. "Are you experimenting with, like, edgy endings? Is it gonna be sad? Like gay La La Land?"

  
Dan laughs then, sounding as though the sound was surprised out of him.

  
"Where the hell did you - no, no, alright, it's not gonna be gay La La Land, Jesus _Christ_ , Phil. It worries me that that's the saddest movie that came to mind for you, I have to say."

  
"Not the _saddest_ , just - just a love story without a happy ending."

  
There's something oddly sombre about Dan's expression all of a sudden.

  
"Yeah, well," He says, quiet. "Hopefully this one will be happy."

  
-

  
Dan writes for days on end. Phil has to nag him to take breaks, to eat and walk around the room so his limbs don't go numb. He also has to field conversations with an increasingly harried Martyn, who keeps asking how much food they have left.

  
"I'm just saying, Phil," He says, one cold morning. Phil's lying like a starfish on top of the bedcovers and he's cold, wisps of an icy breeze getting in from somewhere and making him shudder uncomfortably. "If it comes down to a fight between the two of you, you need to kill him and eat him."

  
"You need to stop talking," Phil says, half-groan, half-laugh. "Does Cornelia know you've lost your mind?"

  
"I've known that for a long time," Cornelia calls.

  
"Hey!" Martyn says, indignant. Phil grins when he hears the two of them laughing.

  
"Am I on speakerphone?" He asks.

  
"You're always on speakerphone. Calling you is a team sport."

  
"I don't like you."

  
"Yeah, yeah," Martyn says. "You should call mum, by the way. There's only so many times she'll believe that your phone, like, froze into an ice cube."

  
"She'll just worry. And her and dad will show up with an ice pick, or something."

  
"Yeah," Martyn says. "Even so."

  
"I'll call her tomorrow."

  
"You'd better."

  
After he's hung up, he uses his data to scroll through Instagram, mindlessly liking photos. He's just watching a video of some baby turtles when his phone pings with an email.

  
It's Dan. They'd swapped email addresses days ago, much to Dan's amusement.

  
( _"Amazing_ Phil, did you just say?"

  
"Shut up. I was young."

  
"Young and brimming with confidence, apparently." Phil had thrown a cushion at him then, rolling his eyes at his stupid laughing face. "Well, that wasn't very _amazing_ of you...")

  
 _heres some of what i have so far_ , the email says. That's it, nothing else - with a document attached. Heart pounding with anticipation, Phil taps the attachment and turns over, curling himself into a comfortable position so he can read.

  
It takes him a while to make the connection. There are lots of descriptions of snow, wind rushing across the hillsides, and Phil smiles to himself, thinking that their current situation must've inspired Dan after all.

  
Then, mouth dry and heart pounding, he reads more.  
It's about - it's about two people in their exact situation, more or less - two cottages side by side, snowed in with no way out. Except - except the main character has a crush on the guy in the cottage next door. It has the same feeling, the same _yearning_ as the rest of Dan's novels that Phil's read, but - but it's about them. It's about _them_.

  
Phil doesn't know how long he sits there, cold and lost in thought. Dan's been writing about them - this is about _them_ , based on their stay here, and from Dan's point of view they're...they're...

  
 _Hopefully this one will be happy_ , he'd said, when Phil had asked, sounding sad and uncertain.

  
He makes his way downstairs in a daze, head full and heart pounding. As if on autopilot he crosses the room into the kitchen, pulling the door open -

  
Only to find Dan standing there in the cupboard, hand raised. 

  
Until he sees Dan, he feels like there's a chance he has the wrong idea. After all, Dan could just be inspired by the situation - and not all fiction has to reflect real-life experiences. Look at crime writers, he thinks - they write about murder all the time, and none of them have ever killed anyone. Probably.

  
Except then he's face to face with Dan in the cupboard, and Dan's hair is wild and his eyes are wide and Phil just _knows_ in that second, puzzle pieces slotting into place.

  
"I read it," He blurts out, because he doesn't know how to be smooth or cool about this. "I - I read it."

  
Dan nods. His eyelashes flutter, nervously, tongue darting out to wet his dry lips.

  
"What did you think?" He asks, barely audible. "You don't have to spare my feelings, remember."

  
"Good. It was good." Phil pulls a face at himself and his ability to only speak in monosyllables, and Dan breathes out a laugh. Phil laughs too, some of the tension easing. " _God_ , it was - it was what I think it was, right? I'm not - I'm not just. Just."

  
"It was you," Dan says. "If you - if you think it's too much then - then that's fine. I _know_ it's too much, I just." His adam's apple bobs. "The way I feel tends to, like, get into my writing. And I've been so - I dunno. _Lonely_ , I guess. I mean, you know that. And then you showed up, and - and it's like I didn't realise how bad things were until - until they weren't. And then...spending time with you..." He shrugs, not looking Phil in the eye for a second. "Y'know."

  
"It's not too much," Phil says, words barely a breath. "It's. I've been the same."

  
Dan swallows again.

  
"Ok," He says. "Well - what now?"

  
Phil feels like his skin is singing. It feels like the small space between them is tantamount to hundreds of miles, his hands sweaty and shaking, desperate to bridge the gap.

  
He shrugs.

  
"What you wrote was missing something, you know," He says, then laughs at himself.

  
"What?" Dan says, smiling uncertainly. "What's so funny, oh my God-"

  
"I just - I thought of something to say but it's, like. You'll kill me."

  
"Jesus Christ," Dan says, making a big show of rolling his eyes. His smile falters when Phil touches his shoulder, then his face, moving in close.

  
"I was gonna say it was missing this," Phil says, their noses brushing.

  
"You're right," Dan says, reaching out to hold onto Phil's waist. "I _am_ gonna kill you."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are reaching the end!!! thank you all so much for reading and commenting and just - oof, the encouragement it gives me, thank you all so so much 💖💖
> 
> the biggest of thank yous to Andrea, without whom this would be ugly word soup 💗💗💗💗💗 how did i ever post without them 🥺

Dan’s hands are trembling.

  
“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” Phil says, pulling back, blood roaring in his ears, lips tingling. “We – we don’t have to -"

  
“No, no,” Dan says, pulling him back in, open-mouthed kisses and a tilt of his hips that knocks the wind out of Phil, a sucker-punch of sensation. “It's just – been a while.”

  
“Me too,” Phil admits.

  
“But I want to. God, I _really_ want to.” Another kiss, hard enough to leave Phil dizzy. “Driving me crazy.”

  
“ _Me_? It was you who walked in in pants on that first day-“

  
“Oh my God, shut _up_.”

  
Phil laughs, soft, the sound muffled when Dan kisses him again, lost into his mouth.

  
Dan's hand finds the hem of his shirt, tentative and uncertain, and something about his hesitation makes Phil's heart ache, makes him pull back and tug his shirt off in one clumsy movement that nearly dislodges his glasses.

  
Dan laughs, eyes dark, and smooths one hand across Phil's chest, gentleness making him shudder, helplessly. With his other hand he pushes Phil's glasses back onto his nose, fingertips whispers of touch against his cheekbone.

  
“Upstairs?”

  
Phil nods immediately, any thought of embarrassment gone.

  
“Please,” He says, and means it so much that it hurts – so much that it might just consume him.

  
-

  
"I don't do this," Dan says much later, voice barely a whisper. Phil thought he'd maybe fallen asleep. There's a second when he could pretend to be asleep, just lie still, the pair of them curled around each other, and act like he didn't hear that little confession, a wisp of breath in the quiet room.

  
"Don't do what?" Phil says, feigning obtuseness. Then, "Get snowed in with random blokes for weeks on end?" Dan breathes out a little laugh that blows cold air onto Phil's neck. "Shocking, truly."

  
"Fuck off," Dan says. Phil can hear his smile. It shouldn't make him feel the way it does - warm and light. His heart's become this fluttering little creature living in his chest, fragile and hopeful, and he's suddenly, painfully aware of how it could be crushed with the tiniest of blows. By a puff of wind, even.

  
He breathes, in and out, focusing on how the air feels in his nose and mouth.

  
"I mean," Dan says. "This. Like - _this_."

  
His fingers twitch a little where they're touching Phil's back, his arm around him.

  
"You're telling me you haven't had, like, a string of guys in the cottage next door?"

  
He's joking, but Dan doesn't take the bait.

  
"Yeah," He says. "I mean, no. Just you."

  
Phil wonders if Dan can feel how hard his heart's beating.

  
"I don't do stuff like this either," He says, quietly. "I mean, I guess when I was younger, but - that's different."

  
"God, yeah. I feel like you're just, like, fearless when you're a teenager," Dan says. He pauses, laughs to himself a little. "Not that I was exactly _fearless_ , you know, but. Stuff meant _less_ then, you know? It's - it could just be fun, then, and. And it didn't have to mean anything."

  
"This doesn't have to mean anything," Phil says. "Not if you don't want it to."

  
The words fall out of his mouth, scared and fast. It's verbal clutching at straws, spouting anything to stop Dan from pulling away from him, rolling to the other side of the bed and leaving him cold and alone.

  
Dan doesn't move. He doesn't say anything - just stays where he is, curled around Phil, skin soft and breaths fluttering. Phil wants to say something else - something to explain himself, to give himself away. 

  
He doesn't mean to fall asleep.

  
He wakes up to soft kisses on his shoulder, a gentle hand stroking his arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. He stays still, feigns sleep, mouth dry and skin hot.

  
"I know you're awake," Dan says, voice soft. Another kiss on his shoulder, too tender for Phil's uncaffeinated brain. "You do this weird whistly breathing thing when you're asleep."

  
"Shut up, I don't," Phil says, rolling onto his back. Dan shuffles along just enough, hand that'd been stroking his arm finding his chest, painting him in distracting little touches. "I hate you."

  
Because Dan's grinning, bright and wide, the stupid smug smile that makes Phil feel unsteady. It's beyond him how one person can be so beautiful - messy hair and his stupid awful dimple, _God_.

  
"Yeah, yeah," Dan says, and leans in to kiss him.

  
It scares him a little how all of his usual worries - morning breath and worn-off deodorant - barely seem to matter when Dan's touching him. His mouth's hot and his hand's low on Phil's stomach, still stroking, skirting the edge of the blankets, and Phil makes a stupid helpless noise in the back of his throat, curling his fingers into the hair at the nape of Dan's neck.

  
His phone rings.

  
Phil groans into Dan's mouth.

  
"Ignore it?" Dan suggests, breathlessly, pulling back a little.

  
Phil shakes his head, taking a moment to open his eyes and come back to himself.

  
"My brother," He explains. "He always - I should pick up, he'll think we've been eaten by wolves or something."

  
"I'd like to see the wolves that could scale the snow mountain outside," Dan says, eyes bright with amusement. He flops onto his back, away from Phil, and Phil feels the absence of him as keenly as an icy gust of wind.

  
His phone's still ringing. He takes a second, a moment to appreciate Dan's kiss-pink mouth and messy hair. Then he sighs, and picks up.

  
"Tell me you weren't drinking again last night."

  
"Good morning, Martyn," Phil says, deadpan. "No, we haven't been eaten by wolves, Martyn."

  
Dan snickers next to him.

  
"Good to hear. Did you ring mum?"

  
"Yep." 

  
He had, and it had taken way too long to convince her that no, he wasn't in any immediate danger and yes, they had enough food to last them, and no, they didn't need her to drive up here with a _snow plough_ , or whatever it was she'd suggested.

  
"Good. You were making me look too responsible in comparison. Balance has now been restored."

  
"Shut up."

  
"Are you being annoying again?" Cornelia says in the background.

  
"Yes," Phil and Martyn both say, simultaneously.

  
"She meant you," Phil tells him.

  
"So did I," Martyn says. "Do you guys still have food?"

  
"Yeah, we still have food."

  
"We ran out of cereal though," Dan says. He's playing a game on his phone.

  
"Oh, but we ran out of cereal-"

  
"Wait, wait," Martyn says. Phil prepares to hang up. "Is he there with you this time? Like, _actually_ there with you?"

  
"No," Phil says. "A random guy walked through the wardrobe from Narnia yesterday."

  
Dan laughs.

  
"Oh my _God_ ," Martyn says.

  
"Wait, is _he_ there?" Cornelia asks. "The gay author guy?"

  
"Yeah, apparently."

  
"Can you guys not-"

  
"Oh my _God_ ," Cornelia says. "Oh, that's nice, Phil."

  
"Hand him the phone," Martyn says. "I can be scary. More than dad, anyway."

  
"Not more than mum," Phil reminds him.

  
"Christ, no. There are vampires with less bite than mum."

  
Phil laughs.

  
"I'm gonna go. I need coffee."

  
"Hand him the phone," Martyn says. "I wanna talk to the gay author guy, hand me over-"

  
"What are you, a mafia boss?"

  
"Phil-"

  
Phil hangs up, laughing. He abandons his phone on the bedside table and rolls over to face Dan. Dan drops his phone flat on his chest and turns his head towards him.

  
"You guys were talking about me," He says. It isn't a question, and he doesn't seem upset, so Phil doesn't see any reason to lie.

  
"Might've mentioned you. Once or twice."

  
Dan wets his dry lips.

  
"Once or twice."

  
"Or, like. Five or six times. I wasn't keeping a tally."

  
Dan laughs, a soft exhale, and flushes. He moves his phone to the bedside table and rolls over so they're properly face to face, Dan hugging his arms to his chest.

  
"If I'd had anyone to mention you to, I would've," He admits, quietly.

  
Phil has to touch him, then. He has to - it's like two magnets snapping together, a force he can't fight against.

  
He doesn't get a cup of coffee until much later.

  
-

  
"At what point should we start to worry, d'you think," Phil asks.

  
He's making corned beef hash, a meal he remembers from his childhood. Specifically, he remembers hating it, but they have all of the ingredients, more or less. Inspiration and supplies are both running low.

  
"If one of us gets the desire to gnaw on the other's leg," Dan suggests. "In, like, the hungry way, not the sexy way."

  
Phil rolls his eyes and laughs, feeling himself flush.  
"Seriously. Should we try digging out?"

  
"And then do what? There are no trains."

  
"No, but. I dunno. It feels like we should do something."

  
Dan waggles his eyebrows, sidling in too close for Phil's liking when he's literally trying to slice carrots.

  
"We have _done_ something."

  
"That is the worst thing you've ever said and I hate you," Phil says all in one breath, focusing on not chopping his fingers off.

  
Dan laughs then, throwing his head back, like it's the funniest thing in the world.

  
"Put the knife down so I can kiss you," He says.

  
Phil stares at the carrot so hard that it blurs, feeling hot and stupid.

  
He puts the knife down.

  
-

  
He worries. He worries because he's Phil, and his brain loves to tie itself up in knots.

  
He touches Dan, leans into him, sits curled around him on the sofa, firelight burning down low. He worries about going back to work, about the cold streets of London, about being alone on the tube, in his echoey flat. Being alone has never bothered him before - he relishes his own company, but the thought of going back to the way things were, as if they never met - it stings.

  
That worries him, too. This attachment, this - this need. He feels like he _needs_ Dan to be there, across the room, ready with a quip and an eye roll and an unbearable joke. It's terrifying, somehow, that in such a short space of time he's become so used to Dan, so accustomed to him.

  
It's easy _not_ to worry, though. It's not like he has many moments alone now - they spend their nights curled up in Dan's bed in his cottage, listening to the howls of the wind outside, the two of them warm and safe and alone.

  
It's the elephant in the room. This big roaring _after_ , what will happen _after_ , an open doorway in the corner of the room that the pair of them are studiously ignoring, hoping if they kiss enough, touch enough, it might just go away.

  
"I think the snow's going down," Dan says, quietly, one evening.

  
They're in the bath in Phil's cottage. It had been Phil's idea, caught up in the romance of it all and the packet of tea lights he unearthed in a drawer upstairs. He'd underestimated two things - just how much water it'd take to fill the old tub (the answer was a lot, possibly an ocean) and the amount of limbs they have between them. He thinks it would've been easier to fit a bag of angry squid in the tub than it was for the two of them to manouvre their long legs and arms, but they'd somehow done it.

  
"You think so?" Phil says. Dan's back is up against his chest, Phil holding him in his arms. They'd done rock paper scissors to determine who'd be the little spoon and Dan had lost - not that he'd seemed too upset about it. 

  
"Yeah," Dan says. Phil kisses his ear, then his neck, just because he can. "It's, like, nearly below the window now. We could try the door tomorrow."

  
Dan arches his neck for better kissing access, and it's so funny and cute to Phil that it dispels the swirling anxiety in the pit of his stomach, if only for a moment.

  
"There are probably still no trains," He says, inhaling at the juncture between Dan's neck and shoulder. "Even if we can get the door open. I told my boss that I didn't know when I'd be back. Sent them, like, a thousand pictures."

  
"We can't stay here forever."

  
The words make Phil feel cold and small, despite the heat of Dan's skin and the bathwater.

  
"I know," He says.

  
Dan exhales. The little cluster of candles closest to the side of the bath judder, flames flickering, yellow light leaping all around them.

  
"It's been. I've loved it. I - I love it, it's not like - it's not like I _want_ to go -"

  
"It's ok," Phil says, squeezing his eyes shut where Dan can't see. He can't bear to be rejected, however gently. "It's ok, let's just. It's ok."

  
They sit for a moment, breathing in the silence.

  
"Ever think about how, like. A bath is just dirt soup."

  
Phil laughs then, the sound surprised out of him.

  
"Tell me you did not just say that."

  
"It is! It's dirt soup." He pats the water with his hand, making a little splashing noise. "I think I just grossed myself out."

  
"God, you're awful."

  
"You're only saying that 'cause you know I'm right -"

  
"This was meant to be romantic and then you had to say _dirt soup_."

  
Dan laughs then, loud and stupid, and Phil can't help but join in, holding onto him tightly.

  
"We should get out," He says, still laughing.

  
"Why? 'Cause it's dirt soup?"

  
"Stop _saying_ that-"

  
"You started it!"

  
"I just mean," Dan says, talking over him. "I was gonna be all suave and like, make a move on you but I feel like if I do the bath'll overflow and the whole place will flood. And I'll have to look Margie in the eye and tell her the soft furnishings are ruined because I tried to have sex with a nice stranger in her nice cottage bath-"

  
"Stop. Stop talking. Please. Wait, nice _stranger_?"

  
"As far as she's concerned, I mean," Dan says, a smile in his voice. He pauses. "You're not a stranger."

  
There's a weight in his words, a meaning that Phil doesn't understand. He swallows hard anyway, heart hammering.

  
"Good to know."

  
"I mean," Dan says, and Phil can just tell by his tone of voice that all seriousness has left the building. "You _are_ strange, don't get me wrong. There's no getting past that."

  
"Fuck off," Phil says, snorting. "I hate you."

  
"No you don't."

  
"No I don't."

  
-

  
Afterwards, they dry each other with soft towels and kiss lazily in the candlelight. There's no rush - no need to rush, it's not like either of them have anywhere to be. Dan looks so wonderful in the yellow light, golden highlights and dark shadows, like a particularly beautiful painting. Phil wants to kiss him everywhere the light touches - wants to hold him close and never let go.

  
Instead, he laughs at how wild Dan's towel-dried curls are, and Dan flips him off, throwing a towel around his shoulders that nearly upends a candle. They retreat to the sofa, shrouded in blankets, and kiss until the fire burns down to almost nothing, room lit by an eerie red glow.

  
"I don't want to go," He confesses, breathlessly, as Dan's teeth scrape against his pulse point.

  
"Stay, then," Dan says, his voice barely a whisper. His eyes look black in the poor light. "Don't go. Stay."

  
It doesn't mean anything, Phil tells himself. They're kiss-drunk and stupid, and Dan's hardly likely to push him away now - not when they're still stuck here together.

  
He knows that, but kisses him anyway. In the dim light, he can pretend that he won't leave - that the pair of them can stay like this, locked away from the rest of the world, caught in the red firelight.

  
-

  
The next night, Phil wakes up with a jolt. He rolls around for a second, confused at what woke him, thrashing around in the bedcovers. His hand touches the empty pillow next to him and he squints across the room at the indistinct shape of Dan, standing in the window.

  
He fumbles for his glasses and shoves them onto his nose, just as there's a crack of thunder. It rumbles overhead, sending a shiver down his spine. Dan's just standing there, looking outside, silhouetted in the grey light. 

  
Phil slips out of bed and crosses the room to smooth a hand across his bare shoulder. Outside, there's a flash of lightning across the white landscape, sudden and terrifying.

  
"God," Phil says. He can't help it - he's always loved thunderstorms. Next to him under his breath, Dan's counting Mississippis.

  
The thunder rumbles again, just as he gets to four.

  
"It's close," He says, quietly.

  
As if on cue, the rain starts to fall. It's so strange to Phil, after weeks of silent snowfall, to hear the patter of rain, to see it falling in sheets across the hillside.

  
Enough to melt the snow, he thinks, with a pang.

  
"Rain never stopped trains, I bet," Dan says, softly. "You should check tomorrow, I bet they'll be back on."

  
"Come back to bed," Phil says, ignoring him.

  
There's something bewitching about Dan's profile in the half-light, touches of silver on his nose and the glint in his eyes. When the lightning flashes again it illuminates him in white for a second - a camera flash, bright and beautiful. It aches to look at him like this - ethereal in the strange light, a man who can't possibly be real.

  
"Dan," He says, softly. "Come on."

  
Dan turns then, breaking the spell. He lets Phil lead him back to the safety of the bed, lets Phil kiss him, the pair of them pushing and arching against each other until there could be nothing - no patter of rain, no rumble of thunder, no storm raging outside - just the two of them, Dan's hitching breaths and Phil's helpless, embarrassing noises.

  
They can pretend, just for a little while.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done!
> 
> I cannot stress this enough, this fic would not exist without Andrea. They have encouraged me and been so kind and proofread the WHOLE damn thing and i can never say thank you enough - but thank you, angel 💗💗💗
> 
> Also a huge thank you to anyone reading this! All of the support all the way along has meant so much to me 💗💗💗 I hope you guys enjoy this one 💖💖💖

"Snow update?" Martyn says.

  
"It's melting," Phil says. He'd ignored Martyn's earlier call, the buzz of the phone in the morning light, entirely too wrapped up in Dan to care, savouring every second they have left. Now he's in the bathroom, perched on the edge of the bath, a few doors between him and Dan, who's making breakfast. "It's definitely melting."

  
"Well, that's good," Martyn says. There's a low buzz in the background, maybe Cornelia saying something very quietly. "That _is_ good, right?"

  
"Yeah," Phil says, in his least convincing bright tone ever. "There are some trains on Saturday."

  
"Ok," Martyn says. "Phil. Serious big brother voice for a second-"

  
"Oh _God_ -"

  
"You don't sound happy about going home. Is it, like - is it work?"

  
"No, no. God, no. I mean, it's not exciting but - no."

  
"So it's him, then."

  
"Martyn."

  
"Is he staying there? And you're coming back to London? He lives here too, doesn't he?"

  
"I - I dunno. I don't wanna -"

  
"'Cause it's not like you leave and he ceases to exist, you know that, right?"

  
"No, I thought he was a ghost," Phil says, voice heavy with sarcasm.

  
"I'm _serious_ , Phil. Serious voice. D'you have his number?"

  
"It's not as simple as that," Phil says. "I'm gonna go, I - I need to do some washing."

  
"I'm just saying," Martyn says, right before Phil hangs up. "Don't get stuck in your head about this. Talk to him. Get his number. I swear, I'll-"

  
He doesn't hear the rest. When he walks back through into the other cottage, Dan's leaning against the counter eating toast.

  
"I found bread," He says, spraying crumbs. "It was under some ice cream in the freezer."

  
It's too much - him standing there, all elbows and forearms as he gestures, wearing the shirt Phil had slept in last night.

  
"I swear I looked there yesterday," He says, forcing the bad feelings down as he goes over to him, snagging a slice of toast from the plate and kissing him on the temple. He smells _warm_ , like sleep and soft early mornings, and he leans into Phil with a little hum.

  
"Didn't look hard enough, _pal_. Should've gone to Specsavers." He turns when Phil doesn't say anything. "What's up?"

  
"Nothing."

  
Dan raises his eyebrows.

  
"Nothing," He repeats.

  
"Yep," Phil says. "I'm just. Just tired, and - and I need to wash all my clothes so I can pack them."

  
Dan grins then, waggling his eyebrows like an idiot.

  
"Y'know, if you want me to take my shirt off all you have to do is _ask_."

  
"Shut up," Phil says, laughing.

  
" _Oh, I need to wash all my clothes before I pack_ ," Dan says, in a stupid whiny voice. "I bet you say that to all the boys."

  
"No," Phil says. "Just you."

  
It takes Dan a second to catch the change in tone, his smile fading. Phil's heart lurches pathetically in his chest.

  
"That's ok, then," He says, and pulls him in for a kiss.

  
-

  
It's weird. It's a weird feeling - one he hasn't had before. It feels like someone hit pause on both of their lives when this whole thing started, the pair of them frozen together in this one moment. And now things are moving again, there are trains to catch and nine-to-five office days to go back to, and Phil doesn't feel ready.

  
He doesn't want to go.

  
"I think I'm just gonna stay here," Dan says. "Dunno if I've written enough to justify going back to London."

  
He's sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the sofa, back between Phil's legs, while Phil plays with his hair. The cursor is flashing on the word document Dan has open, woefully ignored in favour of Dan tilting his head this way and that into Phil's hands.

  
"You're like a cat," Phil says, laughing. He wants to say, _come back to London with me. Don't stay here by yourself._ "Are you sure you'll be ok here?"

  
"Have been all this time. I can just ask Margie to drive me to Asda, or something."

  
_But you said you were lonely_ , Phil thinks.

  
That's the problem. He _thinks_ , but doesn't _say_. And the days pass and Saturday creeps nearer and nearer, and they kiss in the shower and in the kitchen and on the sofa, their legs entangled, and Phil's mind roars with all the things he isn't saying, an ocean of unspoken words in his head.

  
-

  
On Friday night, they stay awake too long. Dan writes a little, tapping of his fingers against the keys stilted and halting, like he can't concentrate. Phil can relate - he scrolls through old pictures on his phone without even looking at them, just for something to do with his hands and his brain that isn't thinking about how this is their last night together.

  
"God, whatever," Dan says, after a while, shutting his laptop and abandoning it on the coffee table. He looks over at Phil. "Come upstairs?"

  
Phil's heart skips, the same as always, only this time he feels unbearably sad.

  
"You have such a way with words," He says, making a show of rolling his eyes. He follows him upstairs all the same.

  
That night, they kiss with reverence. Dan's hands on his skin could be seeking out Braille, reading the very heart of him with the touch of his fingertips. Phil tries to lose himself in it all, tries to commit each touch, each sound to memory.

  
Afterwards, they doze curled around each other, holding on tight.

  
"Wake me up tomorrow?" Dan says, words slurring with tiredness. "Before you leave?"

  
It's the first time either of them have properly mentioned him leaving since the night of the storm. Swallowing hard, Phil squeezes his eyes shut, pained expression hidden in Dan's shoulder.

  
"Course I will."

  
"Promise?"

  
"I promise."

  
-

  
In the morning, Phil bargains with himself.

  
His bag is packed, shoes lined up neatly at the cupboard door, waiting for him. Dan had been dead to the world when he'd slipped out of bed, sky still murky and grey beyond the windows, daylight only just creeping over the horizon.

  
If Dan wakes up, he thinks, drinking his coffee. If Dan wakes up, he'll say goodbye. He'll tell him how he feels, he'll ask him to go to London with him. 

  
Nothing happens. Phil sits there, heart beating hard, waiting. There's nothing beyond the crackle of the fire and the clink of his fingernails against the coffee cup in his hands. 

  
He pictures Dan upstairs, wrapped in blankets, blissfully asleep. He thinks about going up there, crawling back in with him, joining him in the warmth. He thinks about waking him with a kiss, like this is a fairytale.

  
Only this is the real world. Things don't always get resolved, not like in books or films. Sometimes people crash into each other and then drift apart, and that's just the way it is.

  
It's stupid, at his age, to believe in happily-ever-afters. It's stupid to believe that everything can just work out because he wants it to. 

  
So he just sits, and drinks his coffee, and waits.

  
-

  
"Goodness, I bet you're glad to be leaving after all this," Margie says in the car.

  
"Not really," Phil says, sounding distant and small. He clears his throat, embarrassed. "It's been great, honestly. Nice to get away."

  
"I'm just glad you're alright. I was so _worried_ about the pair of you. Mind you, it's not like I was getting out of the house much, either..."

  
Phil lets her voice lull him, a little. She talks about ice and salting the paths and snow. He just looks out of the rain-spotted window at the sloshy streets beyond, hillscapes giving way to terraces of houses as they make their way back into the town. His stomach aches and his throat feels thick. He should've just woken Dan up, God, _why_ didn't he wake him? Why did he just _sit there_? He should've told him how he felt and now it's too late - now he's headed back to London with nothing but an email address and the book in his rucksack, the first one of Dan's that he'd read.

  
He squeezes his eyes shut, tight, and tries to focus on breathing. His head's just full of _Dan_ \- Dan and his smile, the touch of his hands and how being with him just felt right, straightaway - like puzzle pieces slotting together.

  
"Are you alright, dear?"

  
"I just - carsick."

  
"Oh, blimey," Margie says. "Get a mint out of the glove compartment, that'll help."

  
Phil just does what she says, fingers numb and fumbling everything. He wants to tell her to turn back - he wants to call work and tell them he won't be back in after all, that there's been another freak weather warning. He wants to burst back in through the cottage door and run upstairs to Dan, throw his arms around him and breathe in the smell of him, with no intention of letting go for a long while.

  
Instead, he just sits there, letting the car take him further and further away.

  
-

  
"You're an idiot."

  
"Well, thanks," Phil says, a little too loudly for a quiet train platform. A girl leaning against a pole with a book looks over at him, frowning. He turns away, embarrassed. "I was already feeling shit, thanks for making it all better."

  
"Why didn't you speak to him?" Martyn says. "I _told_ you to speak to him-"

  
"And I chickened out, alright? Because - because I couldn't deal with it if he - if he turned around and was like, _oh, right, whatever_. Like, if he didn't _care_. I couldn't - I couldn't have done it."

  
He's breathing heavily. Beyond the veranda that covers the platform, rain beats down on the tracks. Phil watches the way the wind tugs at the plants that have pushed up in amongst the gravel and sleepers, bent double, leaves rippling.

  
"Phil."

  
"I know. I know, I'm _stupid_. You don't have to tell me, alright?"

  
"I shouldn't have said that," Martyn says. "You're not stupid."

  
"I am. I really am, I - I should've _told_ him, I should've woken him up and - and now everything's over, and - and -"

  
"Stop, alright. Deep breaths." He actually huffs down the phone line, which takes Phil by surprise so much that he laughs.

  
"What are you doing?"

  
"Breathing exercises."

  
"Stop, please," Phil says. His smile fades a little. "Sorry for being a dick."

  
"It's ok. Just - do me a favour and call him, alright? Like, right this second. How long 'til your train?"

  
"About fifteen minutes. And I don't have his number."

  
"Jesus, Phil. _Email him_ , then, alright? Right now. I'm hanging up."

  
And he does. Phil just looks at his phone, the sounds of the rain washing over him. How does he even explain? He opens a new email and just stares at the cursor, flashing away, mocking him.

  
Maybe this is how Dan felt, he thinks. Maybe this is what his writers block was like - just staring at a blank white screen, hoping against hope that everything he was feeling would just blossom on the page of its own accord, beautiful as a garden in the summertime.

  
The cursor just keeps flashing. It's a stupid idea, explaining himself in an email. He should get a taxi back to the cottage - there'll be other trains.

  
He's just turning to make his way back to the barriers when he sees someone walking over to him.

  
It's Dan, wearing that too-small yellow raincoat he'd borrowed on one of those first days. His hair's plastered to his head and he looks frantic. Phil's heart leaps and he moves over to him, hardly daring to believe it - that Dan's _here_ , as though Phil had plucked him straight from his thoughts.

  
"Dan-"

  
"You promised to wake me up," Dan says. He's angry. Phil's stomach drops. "You promised."

  
"I-"

  
"I really thought," He says, gesturing, coat barely covering his wrists. "I thought - I thought it was important, you know? I know - I know we never _talked_ about it, and - and you said all that about how it didn't have to mean anything, but. I let myself think - or at least I _thought_ I was worth a goodbye, after all of that."

  
"You are. You _are_ , Dan."

  
Dan moves his head away from Phil's hand, taking a step back. It's more than a little like being punched in the throat, one tiny action enough to knock the wind out of him.

  
"You just _left_. You just - I woke up and you were _gone_ , Phil. After _everything_ , you were really just gonna leave without saying goodbye?"

  
"No," Phil says. "I regretted it the second I left-"

  
"It looks like it," Dan says, gesturing wildly around them, at the rain-washed platform. "Was it all just a laugh? Is that it? Some fun holiday thing to tell the guys in the office, _oh, I fucked some lonely author just for fun_ -"

  
"No, no," Phil says, vehemently. This time, Dan doesn't move away when he reaches out, touching his shoulder, the wet side of his neck. His hair's sticking to his forehead in damp spirals, and he really is so beautiful, even when his face is all twisted up in anger, lips thin. "I was just gonna come back, I - I don't wanna go, I never wanted to go."

  
It's like Phil's touch has bled all the fight out of Dan, his shoulders slumping, breath sighing out of him.

  
"I meant it," He says, voice small and desperate. "All the stuff I wrote, when I asked you to stay. I meant all of it." He looks away for a second, breathing heavily. "If you didn't, then - that's ok, I just -"

  
"Stop, stop," Phil says, heart aching. "I meant it too. I was gonna come back to you, I was gonna get a taxi, I couldn't stand it."

  
"Then why," Dan asks, eyes wide and soulful. "Why just walk out like that?"

  
Phil swallows around the lump in his throat. He's cupping the side of Dan's face with his hand, his thumb near his eye, every blink a flutter of butterfly wings against his thumb.

  
"I was scared. I thought maybe you'd be glad to see the back of me, maybe - maybe you were looking forward to the peace and quiet, that it hadn't been that serious for you, I dunno. It was stupid, _I'm_ stupid."

  
"Well, at least you're self aware," Dan says. He smiles then, small, but enough that the knot of tension deep in Phil's chest loosens, just a little. "God, come here."

  
He pulls him into a hug. Phil's hands slip on the wet raincoat but he holds on tight all the same, closing his eyes.

  
"I don't want this to be over," Dan says, voice muffled, not letting go right away. He pulls back, just enough that they can look each other in the eye. "I don't mean this, like - being stuck in the cottage and - and running out of bread, I mean _this_." And he squeezes his hands at Phil's sides.

  
"Me neither," Phil says. He moves in closer then, their cold noses brushing. "I'm sorry for leaving like that."

  
"It's ok, it's ok," Dan says, voice barely a murmur, and kisses him.

  
"Come back to London with me," Phil says, impulsive and stupid, in the breathless seconds between kisses.

  
"I don't have any stuff," Dan says, but he's laughing. "I had to buy a random ticket just to get through the barrier."

  
"Come with me anyway. Please."

  
There's a moment when, despite everything, Phil's scared he'll say no.

  
"Ok," He says, softly. "Ok, I will."

  
Phil has to kiss him then, just as the train starts rolling into the platform. He'd been wrong, after all - it hadn't been the snow that'd given him the feeling of them being locked away from the rest of the world - it had been Dan. Phil doesn't think he's met someone like this before - someone who makes him feel _understood_ , the pair of them just as comfortable in silence as when they're talking. 

Phil thinks like he'll always feel _safe_ with Dan, caught in a bubble, just the two of them. So long as they're together.

  
-

  
Six months later

  
-

  
Phil's lying on the grass in the sunshine.

  
It's a perfect day - the air smells fresh and clean from the rainfall last night, morning sun hot but not unbearable, warmth on his face like a gentle caress. He feels the cool grass under his fingertips and breathes out a sigh.

  
Something hits his arm, shaking him out of his reverie.

  
"Ow," He says, opening his eyes and sitting up. There's a bottle of suncream on the grass. "Was there any need for that?"

  
"Yes," Dan says, sitting down next to him, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. "You'll burn in about five seconds without it."

  
"Are you gonna put it on for me?" Phil asks, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, just to make Dan roll his eyes and laugh.

  
"Why? Did you trip again and break both your hands? Idiot." But he leans in close and kisses him properly, enough to take Phil's breath away, even after all this time. "I'll do your ears. You always miss those."

  
"Not quite the sexy proposition I was going for, but I'll take it," Phil says, grinning. He catches hold of Dan's hand and looks out across the hills for a moment, taking it all in. It's bizarre to think that last time they were both here the whole place was covered in snow. Now it's summer, and there are late bluebells blooming down by the river, daisies opening shyly on the stretch of grass at the front of the cottages. They'd chosen a good time to come back - Margie told them that they have the row all to themselves for the week.

  
"Just like old times," Dan had said, something adorably gleeful in his smile that had made Phil feel light and stupid.

  
It is just like old times, and it isn't. This time, the air is thick with the sound of birdsong rather than the howl of wind, and so far they've spent their days walking, boots caked with mud, sneaking kisses in the woods, giggling like teenagers. In the evenings, they bring chairs outside and sit and watch the sunset in the waning heat. The sky fades from brilliant blue to a pinky orange, and Phil usually ends up dozing off like an old man, his head on Dan's shoulder.

  
This time, they have certainty. This time, they get to spend the week here and then go back to London together. It's surreal, utterly unbelievable, that the universe would let him have this - that one snowstorm and a cancelled train would lead to this, peaceful happiness in the grass in the summertime.

  
"We should have a barbecue tomorrow," Dan says, leaning into him. "What d'you think? I found charcoal in the cupboard downstairs."

  
"I love you," Phil says.

  
He had to - he feels like it's been on the tip of his tongue for the longest time, communicated through touches and smiles and daft emojis. Dan freezes for a second, eyes wide.

  
"I didn't know you liked barbecues that much," He says. When he smiles it's devastating, the same beautiful smile Phil had got lost in all those months ago.

  
"Shut up," He says, rolling his eyes and squeezing Dan's hand tightly. "I do, y'know."

  
"You do what? Love barbecues?"

  
"God," Phil says, making a big show of yanking his hand out from under Dan's, barely holding back a smile. "I actually take it back. Pretend I didn't say anything."

  
"No no," Dan says, grabbing his hand again, laughing. "You can't do that."

  
"Oh yeah? Why?"

  
"'Cause I love you too," Dan says. Phil thinks he'll always remember this moment - Dan's chapped lips and his summer freckles and his beautiful eyes, the way he looks right this moment, just after saying he loves Phil. He loves Phil. "Always have, really."

  
"Oh," Phil says, heart beating hard. "Oh, ok."

  
Dan's cheeks are pink. He shuffles along on the grass, presses his face into Phil's shoulder for a moment. Phil touches his hair, feeling the heat of his breath through his t-shirt.

  
In a minute, he'll kiss him. In a minute, the two of them will get up and retreat indoors, for coffee and croissants. For now, Phil just cards a hand through his soft curls, smiling, feeling lighter than air.


End file.
